Image 1 of 4
Image 2 of 4
Image 3 of 4
Image 4 of 4
Mass Extinctions: Evidence, Patterns, and the Sixth Extinction Debate
Choice-Based Investigation with Data Analysis and Scientific Argumentation
Guide students through the most consequential turning points in Earth’s history with this inquiry-driven lesson on mass extinctions and evolutionary change. Designed for secondary biology and Earth Science classrooms, this interactive Google Slides experience blends data analysis, student choice, and evidence-based argumentation to help students understand how extinction events reshape life on our planet—and why those events still matter today.
How the Lesson Works
Big-Picture Foundations
Students begin by analyzing a set of comparative infographics that highlight the timing, causes, and biological impact of the five major mass extinction events. This establishes a shared framework and prepares students to evaluate extinction as a scientific phenomenon rather than a list of facts.
Student Choice & Deep Investigation
Students then select three of five extinction-focused investigations, allowing them to explore pathways that best match their interests while maintaining rigorous content expectations. Options include:
The Great Oxygenation Event – Students investigate why plants are green, explore the purple Earth hypothesis, and examine how early life altered planetary chemistry.
The Plant Revolution – Students analyze evidence linking early land plants to ocean anoxia, nutrient runoff, and extinction—then compare these processes to modern human-driven dead zones.
The Permian Extinction (The Great Dying) – Students evaluate fossil evidence through a CER task, using differentiated readings that range from accessible to advanced.
The End-Triassic Extinction – Students critically evaluate an AI-generated infographic, practicing scientific literacy and misinformation detection.
The End-Cretaceous (K–Pg) Extinction – Students analyze geological evidence, including iridium layers and impact data, to understand the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs.
The Sixth Mass Extinction
All students conclude by investigating whether Earth is currently experiencing a sixth mass extinction. After exploring curated sources in their preferred format (article, infographic, or video), students critique a deliberately flawed AI-generated essay that minimizes the crisis—using scientific evidence to refute weak claims and strengthen their reasoning.
Why This Lesson Works
This lesson is intentionally designed to balance content mastery with higher-order thinking. Students practice interpreting data, evaluating competing hypotheses, and constructing evidence-based arguments, all within a flexible structure that supports differentiation and engagement.
By the end of the lesson, students won’t just recognize the “Big Five” mass extinctions—they’ll understand how extinction events operate, how scientists study them, and why extinction remains one of the most urgent topics in modern biology.
To preview this lesson, click here.
Grade & Course Recommendation:
High School:Grades 9 Biology or Earth Science, with supports
High School:Grades 10-12 Biology or Earth Science, macroevolution and geologic time unit.
Cross-Curricular Connections:
History of Science Integration: Connection to fossil record discoveries and scientific revolutions.
ELA Integration: Summarizing informational text and writing hypotheses.
Geology Integration: Understanding strata and fossil dating methods.
Daily slide + literacy - based exit ticket included with purchase
Join the Lesson Laboratory and Teach for Tomorrow!
Mass Extinctions Lesson → NGSS Alignment
Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs):
HS-LS2-7: Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.
→ Students compare past extinctions to the present “sixth extinction” and critique flawed arguments about whether it’s happening.HS-LS4-1: Communicate scientific information that common ancestry and biological evolution are supported by multiple lines of empirical evidence.
Connection: Students use fossil and chemical evidence to analyze past extinction events and evolutionary recovery patterns.HS-LS4-5: Evaluate evidence that the change in environmental conditions may result in an increase in some species, the emergence of new species, and the extinction of others.
→ Students analyze infographics, fossil evidence, and scientific articles about mass extinctions and their causes.HS-ESS2-7: Construct an argument based on evidence about the simultaneous coevolution of Earth’s systems and life on Earth.
→ Students explore how events like the Great Oxygenation Event and plant evolution reshaped Earth’s systems.HS-ESS3-1: Construct an explanation based on evidence for how natural resource availability, natural hazards, and climate have influenced human activity.
→ Modern eutrophication and dead zones link past mass extinctions to current human-driven ecological change.
Science & Engineering Practices (SEPs):
Analyzing and Interpreting Data: Infographics, graphs (iridium spike, oxygenation, eutrophication), fossil evidence
Engaging in Argument from Evidence: CER on Permian extinction, AI essay critique
Constructing Explanations: Why plants are green, causes of extinctions, asteroid impact evidence
Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information: Comparing reliable scientific sources with flawed/AI-generated ones
Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs):
Cause and Effect: Linking extinction drivers to outcomes
Stability and Change: Ecosystem collapse and recovery
Systems and System Models: How Earth’s systems (atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere) interact with life
Common Core Standards
Grades 9–12:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.1 / RST.11-12.1: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of science and technical texts. (Students use evidence from infographics, videos, and articles to support claims.)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.7 / RST.11-12.7: Integrate quantitative or technical information expressed in words with visual information (infographics, timelines, fossil data).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.8 / RST.11-12.8: Assess the validity of reasoning and the relevance of evidence in scientific arguments. (Students critique flawed reasoning in the AI-generated essay.)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.1 / WHST.11-12.1: Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content. (Students compose evidence-based rebuttals explaining flaws in the “not a mass extinction” argument.)
Choice-Based Investigation with Data Analysis and Scientific Argumentation
Guide students through the most consequential turning points in Earth’s history with this inquiry-driven lesson on mass extinctions and evolutionary change. Designed for secondary biology and Earth Science classrooms, this interactive Google Slides experience blends data analysis, student choice, and evidence-based argumentation to help students understand how extinction events reshape life on our planet—and why those events still matter today.
How the Lesson Works
Big-Picture Foundations
Students begin by analyzing a set of comparative infographics that highlight the timing, causes, and biological impact of the five major mass extinction events. This establishes a shared framework and prepares students to evaluate extinction as a scientific phenomenon rather than a list of facts.
Student Choice & Deep Investigation
Students then select three of five extinction-focused investigations, allowing them to explore pathways that best match their interests while maintaining rigorous content expectations. Options include:
The Great Oxygenation Event – Students investigate why plants are green, explore the purple Earth hypothesis, and examine how early life altered planetary chemistry.
The Plant Revolution – Students analyze evidence linking early land plants to ocean anoxia, nutrient runoff, and extinction—then compare these processes to modern human-driven dead zones.
The Permian Extinction (The Great Dying) – Students evaluate fossil evidence through a CER task, using differentiated readings that range from accessible to advanced.
The End-Triassic Extinction – Students critically evaluate an AI-generated infographic, practicing scientific literacy and misinformation detection.
The End-Cretaceous (K–Pg) Extinction – Students analyze geological evidence, including iridium layers and impact data, to understand the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs.
The Sixth Mass Extinction
All students conclude by investigating whether Earth is currently experiencing a sixth mass extinction. After exploring curated sources in their preferred format (article, infographic, or video), students critique a deliberately flawed AI-generated essay that minimizes the crisis—using scientific evidence to refute weak claims and strengthen their reasoning.
Why This Lesson Works
This lesson is intentionally designed to balance content mastery with higher-order thinking. Students practice interpreting data, evaluating competing hypotheses, and constructing evidence-based arguments, all within a flexible structure that supports differentiation and engagement.
By the end of the lesson, students won’t just recognize the “Big Five” mass extinctions—they’ll understand how extinction events operate, how scientists study them, and why extinction remains one of the most urgent topics in modern biology.
To preview this lesson, click here.
Grade & Course Recommendation:
High School:Grades 9 Biology or Earth Science, with supports
High School:Grades 10-12 Biology or Earth Science, macroevolution and geologic time unit.
Cross-Curricular Connections:
History of Science Integration: Connection to fossil record discoveries and scientific revolutions.
ELA Integration: Summarizing informational text and writing hypotheses.
Geology Integration: Understanding strata and fossil dating methods.
Daily slide + literacy - based exit ticket included with purchase
Join the Lesson Laboratory and Teach for Tomorrow!
Mass Extinctions Lesson → NGSS Alignment
Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs):
HS-LS2-7: Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.
→ Students compare past extinctions to the present “sixth extinction” and critique flawed arguments about whether it’s happening.HS-LS4-1: Communicate scientific information that common ancestry and biological evolution are supported by multiple lines of empirical evidence.
Connection: Students use fossil and chemical evidence to analyze past extinction events and evolutionary recovery patterns.HS-LS4-5: Evaluate evidence that the change in environmental conditions may result in an increase in some species, the emergence of new species, and the extinction of others.
→ Students analyze infographics, fossil evidence, and scientific articles about mass extinctions and their causes.HS-ESS2-7: Construct an argument based on evidence about the simultaneous coevolution of Earth’s systems and life on Earth.
→ Students explore how events like the Great Oxygenation Event and plant evolution reshaped Earth’s systems.HS-ESS3-1: Construct an explanation based on evidence for how natural resource availability, natural hazards, and climate have influenced human activity.
→ Modern eutrophication and dead zones link past mass extinctions to current human-driven ecological change.
Science & Engineering Practices (SEPs):
Analyzing and Interpreting Data: Infographics, graphs (iridium spike, oxygenation, eutrophication), fossil evidence
Engaging in Argument from Evidence: CER on Permian extinction, AI essay critique
Constructing Explanations: Why plants are green, causes of extinctions, asteroid impact evidence
Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information: Comparing reliable scientific sources with flawed/AI-generated ones
Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs):
Cause and Effect: Linking extinction drivers to outcomes
Stability and Change: Ecosystem collapse and recovery
Systems and System Models: How Earth’s systems (atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere) interact with life
Common Core Standards
Grades 9–12:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.1 / RST.11-12.1: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of science and technical texts. (Students use evidence from infographics, videos, and articles to support claims.)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.7 / RST.11-12.7: Integrate quantitative or technical information expressed in words with visual information (infographics, timelines, fossil data).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.8 / RST.11-12.8: Assess the validity of reasoning and the relevance of evidence in scientific arguments. (Students critique flawed reasoning in the AI-generated essay.)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.1 / WHST.11-12.1: Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content. (Students compose evidence-based rebuttals explaining flaws in the “not a mass extinction” argument.)