Geologic Time Scale Lab Template

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Name: ___________________________ Period: ______
Lab: Making a Geologic Time Scale
Background:
How old is the Earth? Well, if the Earth celebrated its birthday every million years, there would
be 4,600 candles on its birthday cake! Humans have been around only long enough to light the
last candle on the cake. Because the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, geologists have created a
geologic time scale to make their job of studying Earth’s history easier. The geologic time scale
is a standard method used to divide the Earth’s long history into smaller parts. Just as your life’s
history is broken up into sections, the history of the Earth is broken up into smaller sections
called time. Your history can be broken up into sections and labeled as birth, elementary years,
middle school years, high school years, professional years, etc. Time can be broken down even
further, they call these eras. Just think how your school years can be broken down into grades
(elementary = 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th grades). Eras can be further broken down to periods. Think
of this like every 9 weeks in each grade.
Objective
In this activity you will construct a scale model of geologic time that will show the relative
amount of time of the events in Earth’s history.
Materials
4.6 meters of paper, Meter stick, Art supplies, Devise for research
Directions
1. Measure out 4.6 meters of presentation paper and cut.
2. Stretch out the paper and tape each end for a stable work surface.
3. Use a meter stick to draw a continuous horizontal line through the middle of your paper.
4. Create a geologic time scale at this scale:
 1 meter = 1 billion years
 1 centimeter = 10,000,000 years
 1 millimeter = ____________________ years
5. At one end of the tape, draw a vertical line across the entire tape and label it “TODAY” using
a black marker.
6. Measure off the distance starting from the “TODAY” line that represents 4.6 billion years
(b.y.) ago. Draw a vertical line across the entire tape at that point and label it “Earth’s
Beginning” using a black marker. Then fill out the data table on page 2.
7. At the top of the paper write down the time using a blue marker that applies. For example,
PreCambrian or Phanerozoic (see data table on page 2).

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