What is the real history of this fragile earth, our island home?
From HHMI BioInteractive, here’s Earth viewer, a dynamic teaching tool which lets you know what earth was like at different periods in its tumultuous history (in cases where data are available).
It’s an “interactive tool for exploring the science of Earth’s deep history. From molten mass to snowball earth, EarthViewer lets you see continents grow and shift as you scroll through billions of years. Additional layers let you and your students explore changes in atmospheric composition, temperature, biodiversity, day length, and solar luminosity over deep time.”
There is an introductory video, teacher guides, and lots of other good stuff.
And HHMI BioInteractive also has a Biome Viewer to explore biomes, climate, biodiversity, and human impacts across the globe.
What about the moon? Scientists think that when the earth was very young and very hot, a Mars-sized object collided with the Earth, spewing molten rock into orbit around earth, which eventually formed the moon, as this short video explains.