Life before the dinosaurs was pretty amazing—and very fragile! Discover what Earth was like for Cambrian creatures, from the smallest ocean-dwellers to the first land animals. A video from an extensive biology playlist explores how early life lived and died during a tumultuous time in Earth's past.

Concepts

the paleozoic era, the precambrian period, evolution, oceans, fossil records, mass extinction, extinction, oxygen, dissolved oxygen, global warming

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Additional Tags

science

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Instructional Ideas

• Create research groups and assign a different event to each one
• The video works well in both life science and earth science classes

Classroom Considerations

• Some general understanding of how the fossil record is used is helpful for viewing the resource
• The video moves quickly, so it might be beneficial to pause and recap at the end of each segment

• This video is hosted on YouTube

Pros

• The video is full of fascinating facts and images
• Shows each event on a time scale to help viewers keep them in perspective

Cons

• None

Common Core

SL.6.2 SL.7.2 SL.9-10.2