Oral Communication

Social Studies

How do we know about the past of our planet?

What life forms existed

on the planet before humans?

Freepik

Tip

A paleontologist looking for a fossil The geologic time scale

is divided into eons, eras,
periods, epochs, and ages.
Listen to a group of students talking about what they learned in today’s The four major eras are
class. Circle the characteristics about the living things they mention. Precambrian, Paleozoic,
Mesozoic, and Cenozoic,
Bacteria
and they are subdivided
a. large c. released oxygen into shorter periods.
b. tiny d. inhabited planet millions of years

Plants
Vocabulary
a. were the first land beings c. were like mosses
b. had flowers d. appeared 470 million years ago inhabit. to live in a place

ground / land. the solid part

Amphibians of the Earth’s surface;
a geological space
a. first on land c. were fish descendants
b. they stayed on land d. all of them evolved into reptiles remains. the dead body
of a person or animal
Non-Commercial Licence

Reptiles evolve. to change or develop

slowly often into a more
a. all of them were very similar c. dinosaurs were not reptiles
advanced state; to develop
b. all of them were giant d. many species still survive by a process of evolution

3
Reading
Science

How did life appear?

Origin and Evolution of Life

Interesting Facts
What do you know about the beginning of our planet?
Oxygen was not always Discuss your ideas in small groups or as a class.
present on our planet as
it is now. In the beginning,
toxic gases were all around Everything began. Pre- Cambrian: It started about 4.6 billion years
and some primitive bacteria ago. The Earth was formed in the beginning of this era. The air was
lived and developed in very toxic. The first one-celled living beings appeared, and then multi-
that environment. Ancient celled and more complex beings. They lived in water.
cyanobacteria appeared
and released oxygen into Paleozoic: It was a time of great changes in the planet and it is subdivided
the environment for in six periods:
so long and formed the • Cambrian: First shellfish, primitive fish, corals, algae and mollusks
atmosphere. This caused were dominant in the oceans.
other primitive bacteria
to die. It was the beginning • Ordovician: First land plants and initial fish appeared.
of photosynthesis. • Silurian: First insects emerged and more plants were on land.
Source: https://bit.ly/2XmoMN9
https://bit.ly/2wtHqaj
• Devonian: The first sharks appeared, as well as bony fish.
Amphibians and spiders and the first terrestrial forests started
colonizing land.
Vocabulary
• Carboniferous: The first reptiles and insects with wings appeared
release. to allow on land.
(a substance) to enter
the air, water, soil, etc. • Permian: Diverse animal and plant life appeared, reptiles
diversified. Then there was a mass extinction.
bony. Resembling bone.
Hard substance. Full of bones

Answer True (T) or False (F) according to the information in the reading.
If the sentence is false, correct it to make it true.
What did you learn about the
• The environment in the Pre-Cambrian Era had oxygen
origins of life on our planet?
at the beginning.

• The first living things that appeared were cyanobacteria.

• Amphibians appeared before fish.

• Plants first emerged in water.

• The first fish appeared during the Devonian period.

Non-Commercial Licence