Walking Back in Time
History's Roads, Rivers, Passageways and Journeys
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Topics on the Page
Opener and Curriculum Framework
Modes of Learning
Walking Back in Time
Models and Diagrams
Roads, Rivers, Passageways and Journeys
The Doomsday Clock
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OPENER
How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth in All of Humanity? (SOURCE: National Library of Medicine citing United Nations Determinants and Consequences of Population Trends)
From 200,000 BCE to the Present
- 5 million in 8000 BCE
- 300 million in 1 CE
- 450 million in 1200
- 8 billion today
TOTAL: 117 billion
TEACHING AND LEARNING SCENARIO
You are teaching students in a middle or high school science class who are learning about human origins on Earth.
Here is the Grade 6 Standard from the Massachusetts History & Social Science Curriculum Framework
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Massachusetts Curriculum Framework
Grade 6. Topic 2: Human Origins, the Neolithic and Paleolithic Eras
- Supporting Question: How did life on Earth begin and why did humans form complex societies?
1. Describe the great climatic and environmental changes that shaped the earth and eventually permitted the growth of human life.
2. Identify sites where archaeologists have found evidence of the origins of modern human beings and explain current theories of how human groups moved from Africa over time into the continents now known as Asia, Europe, the Americas and Oceania.
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After reading the textbook, students are confused about the great climatic and environmental changes that shaped the Earth and eventually permitted the growth of human life. Many students are also disinterested in this topic.
How can teachers use multiple modes of learning to generate student interest and promote student understanding?
MODES OF LEARNING
WHICH TYPE OF RESOURCE DO YOU PREFER FOR MEMORABLE LEARNING and WHY?
- Online or Paper Text
- Music
- Graph and Map
- Video
- Walking and Measuring Model
Which resource or combination of resources would students find most interesting? Which of them will intrigues them and help them learn this concept and history?
ONLINE TEXT
What is the Age of the Earth? EarthSky (June 3, 2021)
Once in a Million Years: Teaching Geologic Time
MUSIC
Eric Idle of Monty Python's musical walk back in time, Galaxy Song from the movie Meaning of Life (1983)
Galaxy Song lyrics
A Study of the Galaxy Song by Eric Idle
- An analysis of the lyrics determines that the facts stated in the lyrics are largely correct
Lyrics
Just remember you're a tiny little person on a planet
In a universe expanding and immense
That life began evolving and dissolving and resolving
In the deep primordial oceans by the hydrothermal vents
Our earth which had its birth almost five billion years ago
From out of a collapsing cloud of gas
Grew life which was quite new
And eventually led to you
In only three point five billion years or less.
Deoxyribonucleic acid helps us replicate
And randomly mutate from day to day.
We left the seas and climbed the trees
And our biologies
Continued to evolve through DNA.
We're 98.9 per cent the same as chimpanzees
Whose trees we left three million years ago
To wander swapping genes out of Africa which means
We're related to everyone we know.
Life is quite strange
Life is quite weird,
Life is really quite odd
Life from a star is far more bizarre,
Than an old bearded man they call God
So gaze at the sky, and start asking why
You're even here on this ball
For though life is fraught
The odds are so short
You're lucky to be here at all...
Standing on a planet which is spinning round a star
One of just a billion trillion suns
In a Universe that's ninety billion light years side to side
Wondering where the heck it all came from.
You've a tiny little blink of life to try and understand
What on earth is really going on
In biology and chemistry
Which made you you and made me me
But don't ask me I only wrote the song.
CHARTS & GRAPHS
History of the Earth in a 24-hour Clock from the website, Flowing Data.
This Map Lets You Plug in Your Address to See How It’s Changed Over the Past 750 Million Years
VIDEO
Evolution of Life on Earth
Walking and Measuring
To measure how long we humans have been on the planet Earth,
walk outdoors or construct a model indoors
for a Walk Back in Time.
1. Make or choose some markers to show each of the life forms.
2. Place the markers along the path backward in time.
3. Take a photo of your walk or of the model you make indoors.
WALK BACK IN TIME from David Drew's book, Millions of Years Ago.
1 step equals 10 million years
1/2 step = First Human
6 steps = Last Dinosaur
8 1/2 steps = First Bird
5 steps = First Mammal
4 steps = First Dinosaur
8 steps = First Reptile
5 steps = First Amphibian
13 steps = First Fish
5 steps = First Shellfish
10 steps = First Jellyfish
285 steps = First Bacterial Life
These 356 steps equal 3500 million or 3.5 billion of the 4.5 billion years of the earth's age.
NOT everyone can go outside to walk.
Create a model indoors OR draw a model on paper indoors.
This is an ant sized model of the walk back in time made by site coordinator, Cam Smith.
Cam explains: I made the walk for ants (see pictures of the life forms).
I found myself surprised by how much space on my floor I ended up needing.
10 million years = 2 inches.
I moved in a circle, and to get from jellyfish to the first bacterial life, I had to loop in almost three large circles around my room to reach the end!
From this activity, I realized that the distance between jellyfish and bacterial life is more than four times the distance between all the other lifeforms combined!
View video 
Sharon and Bob Walk Back in Time Video
Bob placed his signs and made his walk back in time in the driveway.
Sharon says, "KEEP WALKING! WE ARE NOT FINISHED! Start at the end of the driveway and walk up that hill!"
Answer questions and INSERT the photo(s) of your way of doing A Walk Back in Time.
7. Did learning through a bodily kinesthetic experience--walking the distance or creating a model to measure-- assist you to remember information? Please explain how it did or did not.
8. Did this walk or model-making inspire your curiosity about this concept?
Roads, Rivers, Passageways and Journeys
The Doomsday Clock
The clock records how close humans are to destroying the world with dangerous technologies
2022 Doomsday Clock Statement: 100 Seconds to Midnight
The Clock was established in 1947
In 1947, the time was 7 minutes to midnight; 2022 is 100 seconds to midnight
The Doomsday Clock Explained
Martyl Langsdorf, Doomsday Clock Designer, Died at 96 in 2013
How Mid-Century Modernism Shaped the Design of the Doomsday Clock
Cross-Link: The Manhattan Project and the Atomic Bomb
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