Description
Teach relative dating without making students copy page after page of notes!
Relative dating is an important part of understanding Earth’s history, but the vocabulary and rock-layer diagrams can be confusing for middle school students.
These interactive Google Slides give students something to do while they’re learning. Instead of simply watching a slideshow or frantically copying notes, students interact with the material by dragging and dropping answers into place as you teach.
It’s a simple, low-prep way to introduce or reinforce the principles scientists use to determine the relative ages of rocks and fossils.
What Students Learn
Students explore the major ideas behind relative dating, including:
- Law of Superposition
- Original Horizontality
- Cross-Cutting Relationships
- Determining the relative ages of rock layers
- Using rock strata to reconstruct Earth’s history
- Using evidence from rocks and fossils to understand Earth’s past
Interactive Notes Keep Students Involved
When students are taking traditional notes, they’re often trying to do two things at once: listen to the teacher and copy everything from the screen.
Interactive notes change that.
Students can focus on the explanation and then drag and drop answers into their own copy of the Google Slides to demonstrate what they’ve learned.
The completed slides can also serve as a study resource when students need to review later.
Ways to Use This Resource
Use these interactive slides for:
- A whole-class mini lesson
- Interactive digital notes
- Introduction to relative dating
- Guided practice
- Independent student work
- Review before an assessment
- Digital or paperless instruction
No complicated setup. Just make a copy of the Google Slides and you’re ready to teach.
Perfect For
Grades 7–9 | Earth Science | Geology | Earth’s History | Relative Dating
This resource works especially well as part of a larger Earth’s history/geologic time unit, alongside lessons and activities on fossils, rock layers, absolute dating, and the geologic time scale.
Digital resource — Google Slides required.
Teaching Earth’s History? You might also like:
Absolute Dating Unit
Relative Dating Color by number
Relative Dating Digital Escape Activity
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