Chronological History of the World Unit-Studies for Homeschoolers

This is Earth's infancy; She was created when the Sun fairly exploded with nuclear fusion to give off light and heat, and the cloud of gas and dust surrounding the Sun were heated until they were molten. The heavier elements, like iron, sank, to become our planet's core, and the lighter elements rose to the surface.

During this time the planets were bombarded with asteroids, meteoroids, and comets, left-over debris kicking around the new solar system. When the asteroid-showers had ceased, and the planet cooled and hardened, then the geologic time-line of our Earth begins.

The Hadean Eon
Fossils-Facts-and-Finds provides an excellent reference, suitable to a wide age range, I think. Personally, we're using these as our texts, since our history text-book does not cover so early a time-period. I just print them right out, and we read the synopsis together at the start of each new time-period.

The Hadean Eon
Palaeos seems to provide detailed explanations of each time period, a bit heavy for the younger learners, but for those with older students ( or those teaching who need to understand the information better before presenting it to pupils--like me!) this aught to prove useful.

Introduction to the Hadean Eon
This is short, simple, and concise, go ahead a take a peek.

Geological Eras
From Kidipede, this is a nice resource, with a video, too.

Geologic Time: The Story of a Changing Earth
An extensive resource from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

Hadeon Eon
This has become a trusted resource for us: Kidipede's Science for Kids.

In exploring Earth's History, it is easy to incorporate Earth Sciences along the way.
Follow your child's natural curiosity and 'investigate' in further detail whatever it is he show interest in. Incorporate science experiments, field trips to natural geological landmarks in your area, was documentaries. Earth is fascinating!

INCORPORATE:
Abiogenesis
Astronomy
Climate change
Evolution
Fossils
Geology
Plate Tectonics
Rocks & Minerals
Volcanoes

USGS Educator's Resources
A long list of resources provided free by the United States Geological Service focus on each of the different earth sciences.

For Kids Only Games
These are earth-science based educational games for kids, provided by Nasa.

How Stuff Works: Earth Science
How Stuff Works is a great resource that I find myself using a lot. It has a whole earth science section to explore, and even a search engine if you want to find something specific. It's worth a try.

Science Inquirer
Lots of free science resources here.

Kid's Geography Online Resources
This is a really super resource for Earth Science studies.

Archeological Power-Point Presentations
This is a really terrific resource with all sorts of free power-point presentations related archeology, and lots of other resources to play with. But you don't have to take my word for it; go ahead and take a look!

Altapedia
This is a great resource with free maps, dates, and more to add to your presentation materials.

Geography Resources
Mr. Donn provides great resources, and power point presentations; worth a look.

Probably the most important events in the history of earth, of life, occured during the Proterozoic Era. Land-masses formed, and oxygen built up in Earth's atmosphere.

Before this time, oxygen had been released through photosynthesis, but because of chemical sinks, could not accumulate. Once oxygen could exist inside our atmosphere, then protists, eukaryotic algae, and fungi could live here.

The Proterozoic Era
From Fossil-Facts-and-Finds, another very good reference of the time.

The Proterozoic Era
Provided by the UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
A brief, but efficient look at the era that brought us life on Earth, with links to more in-depth looks at eukaryotists, and more.

The Proterozoic Era
Another great resource, this one has a nice look at the geography of Earth during this time period, and a close-up look at some of the life-forms that existed then.

Proterozoic Eon
From Kidipede's History for Kids, this is a brief and age=appropriate explanation of the proterozoic eon.

This segment is a good place to include a study of microscopic life! Dig out the microscope and examine all things small as part of your science explorations. I have a new Kids-Investigate Lens under construction (12-09), soon to be published.

When North America, Africa, and Europe collided the Appalachian Mountains were created. The Himalayan-sized mountains formed a series of "sutures" that held Pangaea together, straight down the middle. Back then present-day-Washington D. C. would have been opposite the western-Saharan Africa. Then, Pangaea broke up, spreading apart and giving birth to the Atlantic ocean. At the end of the Cenozoic Era, the Appalachians had already been relatively worn down by water erosion.

OTHER SIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN THE APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN RANGES' GEOLOGIC HISTORY:
35mya, a comet struck earth in what is today the southern Chesapeake Bay, VA. It was the largest impact identified in what is today, the US--and left a massive crater in the earth's crust, which immediately filled in with water, leaving little evidence of the phenomenon.
No one suspected the existence of such a crater buried 300-500 meters beneath the lower part of the Chesapeake Bay and its surrounding peninsulas until 1983. The first hint was a 20 centimeter-thick layer of ejecta that turned up in a drilling core taken off Atlantic City, New Jersey, far to the north. The layer contained the fused glass beads called tektites and shocked quartz grains that are unmistakable signs of a bolide impact.
In 1993, oil exploration revealed the extent of the crater.

This is the seventh largest crater on earth; the largest in the United States--and it is especially interesting because of it's impact to the ocean--it was 53 miles in diameter.

Chesapeake Meteor
Hooray for the USGS! This is yet another terrific resource from the folks at the USGS.

Clue to An Ancient Cataclysm
From National Geographic--this just discusses how the meteor's impact might have affected the area at the time.

Chesapeake Bay Bolide
This is a super teacher's resource page--but you don't have to take my word for it!

Dinosaur State Park in Connecticut. Today it looks much like it did 80 mya. Though it would have lain further south along the equator and would have had a climate very similar to the sub-tropics. And there were dinosaurs. I was actually watching a documentary about the mountain range while I worked on this segment, and they discussed how this area has managed to remain relatively unchanged through the passage of time. Many of the trees and plants that grow there now, existed(their ancestors, naturally) through the time of dinosaurs. It was fascinating, and made me wish I lived closer to the park, so we could take a field trip.
The documentary talked about how the cretaceous period was very long. 60mya--there was much less difference between winter and summer. The climate then allowed for a wide variety of plants to evolve; some were able to adapt and today we have a number of cretaceous survivors.

Dinosaur State Park
Their home-page.

Dinosaur State Park's Arboretum
This is their page regarding the cretaceous surviving plants.

The NYC-NJ Palisades: The cliffs are the margin of a diabase sill formed approximately 200 million years ago at the close of the Triassic by the intrusion of molten magma upward into sandstone. The molten material cooled and solidified before reaching the surface. Subsequent water erosion of the softer sandstone left behind the columnar structure of harder rock that exists today.

Geologic History of the Palisades
From the USGS--describes the land-mark in full detail.

Palisades Interstate Park
Home-page for the park.

GENERAL MTN-RANGE LINKS:
Building the Northern Appalachian Mountains
This site gives a detailed account of the mountain ranges' geologic history.

Geologic History of Maine's Appalachian Mountains
This is from the Maine Geological Survey; a very detailed description of the region's geologic history.