Activity Summary: Students will be able to analyze data taken from microfossils in seafloor cores to describe patterns in climate fluctuation during the last 150,000 years of Earth’s history and evaluate how past climate data can be used to predict future climate change patterns.

In this lesson, students will join scientists as they explore how deep ocean sediment cores are used to study microfossils, their ages, and their oxygen isotope ratios to study past climate change and make predictions about future patterns of change. During the course of their exploration, students will gain a basic understanding of ocean sediment core drilling, use microscopes/microscopic images to explore calcareous microfossils, conduct a graphical analysis of oxygen isotope ratios, and use their analysis to make claims about historical climate change and make evidence-based claims about future trends. This lesson can be part of a unit on climate change. It can also be part of a unit on the coevolution of Earth and life.

Ths lesson has been revised and updated based on Secrets of the Sediment.