From the Pleistocene to the "Anthropocene"

Look at the following graph of Earth's temperature during the Pleistocene period, the time when most ancient and certainly modern humans came about. What characterizes the Pleistocene? How did it end? The next period, in which we currently live is called the Holocene. What difference do you notice between the Pleistocene and the Holocene? what do you think are the implications for people?

Paleotemperature graph from Wikipedia

Now let's look at the time when humans started migrating out of Africa and populating all continents:

From Khan Academy

In this radio segment, listen to the introduction of a new concept, the "Anthropocene", and take notes about key concepts or questions you have about it:

 When did humans start shaping Earth's fate? from National Public Radio

When did the "Anthropocene" really begin? How did the first Homo Sapiens or modern humans interact with their environment? How did they change it?

What Killed the Mega Beasts? Discovery Channel

Top 10 animals hunted to extinction in a more recent past.

Earth's Timeline

Students have been working in groups to research data on the following subjects relating to the history of the biosphere: temperature, composition of the atmosphere, plate tectonic, paleobiology, geological periods, crucible events. They then incorporated them into a timeline, showing the relationship between geology, biology, earth chemistry and sometimes even extra terrestrial influences (gravitational pull, asteroid strikes, etc.).

On this 4.5 meters timeline representing the 4.5 billion years of Earth's history, 40 000 years of human history was represented by a single vertical line, the width of a human hair. This will be our next object of study.