Humans in Nidderdale and the Ice Ages Timeline Activity

Transcription

1 Humans in Nidderdale and the Ice Ages Timeline Activity The children make a string of planet earths, some half covered in ice, to demonstrate that Nidderdale was only habitable at certain points since humans first arrived here because of changes in our climate.

2 Show the children Stone Age Nidderdale Humans Arrive PowerPoint up to, and including, slide 9. Remind them that there is evidence of human beings arriving in England nearly 800,000 years but that the climate will have had an effect on when humans may have lived in Nidderdale. Ask the children what they know about the word climate. How important is it for the survival of animals including humans? Does anyone know a family member who has made a decision about where to live or where to go on holiday based on the climate in that place? Can they remember the warmer and colder parts of the earth (e.g. poles and deserts)? Where do most people live on earth now? Where do they not live? Remind them that it can be both too hot and too cold for humans to survive. Tell them that the whole planet has been warmer and colder at different times in the history of the earth. Class starter: Make a human climate change timeline using the children. Choose children and give them glaciation dates cards with dates on from the attached resource sheets. B.P stands for before present. Can they arrange themselves in the right order? They are going to pretend to be the humans of that era. Explain that, depending on the date, the planet would have been hotter or colder and that these periods are known as glacial and inter-glacial. The class help the children with cards decide whether to take woolly hats and gloves (glacial) or sunglasses / a bottle of sun cream (interglacial) to hold. Independent activities Make a Warm Planet / Cold Planet Prehistory Timeline for display LA: Use the printed picture of planet earth. Working as a team, the children write or put date labels on 8 planets and, for the glacial dates, cover the poles of the planets (including the whole of the UK) with cotton wool or white paint to represent ice. Leave the interglacial planets bare. String them up in the classroom in the right order as a timeline to show the warmer / colder climates while humans have been visiting Britain. Ext: Using an atlas with a picture of the world, children draw and label equator, tropic of cancer / Capricorn, label the poles and where the UK would be on their planet.. MA: Give children blank circles and, working as a team, use an atlas to draw, colour and date own planet earths. Represent the glacial and interglacial periods creatively showing the periods of ice (e.g.collage cover/ paint / cotton wool). Draw and label equator, tropic of cancer / capricorn, the poles and the UK. HA: Using the information on the provided table, make a line graph to show the peaks and troughs in temperature of these dates. Children use the blank graph provided or draw own in maths books. Identify the dates when humans might be less likely or more likely to have lived in UK / Nidderdale and say why. Extension: research what might happen to our climate next. Extra teacher notes: It is believed that there have only been four major Ice Ages in the history of the planet. Did you know that we are in the middle of the fourth ice age right now? It is called the Quaternary Ice Age. Every ice age has periods when it is extremely cold and much warmer (more temperate). The cold periods are called glacial periods and the warmer periods are called inter-glacial periods. We are in an inter-glacial period now. Landscape drawings 1 and 2 show us how very different our Nidderdale landscape could appear to the first humans. Landscape drawing 2 shows us the landscape in a period of time we often refer to as the last Ice Age. It is actually an interglacial period of time. The picture shows the landscape at around 20,000 BC. This was actually just part of a glacial period. It lasted from 71,000 years to 12,000 years. Before that was a warm inter-glacial period. Landscape drawing 1 shows the landscape at 120,000 years. Again, this was part of a long warm period of time from about ,000 years.

3 Glaciation Activity Cards Suggested dates which are likely to represent significant global temperature differences. Today 12,000 to years 20,000 years 120,000 years 150,000 years 400,000 years 440,000 years 480,000 years 630,000 years

4 Globe timeline printable 1 Globe timeline printable 2

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6 Degrees Celsius Table to show estimated average global air temperature at points over the last 800,000 years (Based on research into climate sensitivity Hansen, J., Sato, M., Russell, G., Kharecha, P. (2013)...see extra teacher notes below) Years before present (in thousands) Estimated average global air temperature (Degrees Celsius) C 0-12, , , , , , , , , Plot the points with a cross on the graph below and join each cross to the next in order. Line graph to show estimated average global air temperature over the last 800,000 years Thousands of years before present

7 NOTES for teacher The information in the table is from a recent journal article called Climate sensitivity, sea level and atmospheric carbon dioxide, which was published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical & Engineering Sciences The authors are: James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Gary Russell, Pushker Kharecha Published 16 September 2013.DOI: /rsta This table is from the above journal and clearly shows the fluctuations in global temperatures over the last 800,000 years. Further information can be found via Google: Major periods of glaciations in the whole history of the earth: By Joepanzica at en.wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia by Ronhjones, Public Domain, Overarching interglacial periods are provided on Wikipedia. Good rough general guide for Primary School children, although content is sometimes disputed. Years before present (in thousands) present