DO WE HAVE TIME FOR TIME?

Time both controls our lives and gives us a scale by which to measure events in a meaningful manner. Whether it is through a calendar or a diary, all of us have succumbed to the need to schedule our activities. In essence, we are creating our own time lines based on both a relative and an absolute scale. Such is the need of the geologist trying to order the history of the Earth, so that she or he can unravel nature's legacy, whether of animal and plant evolution, or more esoteric concerns such as plate tectonics, climate and oceanic circulation. But the geologist has the added complication of dealing with time beyond our imagination. We glibly speak of the Earth being 4.6 billion years old but we don't really grasp the significance of time beyond our own experience. We humans can more readily equate with relative time: so, to try and convey the geological sense of time to younger students we have developed a time line approach . We have designed and produced a series of picture cards, each of which features a particular event. This may be the first occurrence of a particular animal or plant group or the formation of distinctive rock types. The time line can be customized for a particular school or area and can be used in talks on fossils, evolution, rocks and minerals and landscapes. Each card includes an illustration and the age in millions of years of the event highlighted. The standard set includes: formation of the Earth, oldest rocks, first stromatolites, first shelly fossils, first fish, first land plants, first insects, first amphibians, first trees, first reptiles, first conifers, first dinosaurs, first mammals, first birds, first flowering plants, last dinosaurs, first whales (always wildly popular), first grass, first humans, and Quaternary ice age. Added for regional flavour are: Arisaig, Peggys Cove, Coal Age clubmosses, Joggins, and Five Islands. Each card is held by a student standing in front of the class, with oldest (card not student) to the left and youngest to the right. The emphasis is on the event but the time is useful with older students and teachers. We've had a lot of fun over the years demonstrating the time line to students ranging from kindergarten to twelve. It's certainly a lot more fun than a static display.