The Great Tree of Life was created to show the branching relationships that have evolved between all living things. Estimating the number of generations along branches of the Great Tree of Life back to common ancestors yields approximate genealogical cousin and removal relationships.
Other wonderful trees of life have been drawn, but the one on this website is a bit different, in that it shows all the major and some of the minor branches of life, and ties all of it to a geologic time scale. It also shows a few of the major branches of life that have gone extinct, and hints at changes in diversity through time, especially at times of mass extinction.http://tolweb.org/tree Many authors have pointed out that we are cousins to all other living things, but this website is the first to actually make numerical estimates of cousin and removal relationships by counting up the approximate number of generations back to common ancestors.
Biological evolution is one of the three most profound discoveries in science. The other two are the vastness of the universe and geologic time. As such, biological evolution, along with the other two, deserves to be the foundation of all science learning, and should be taught from an early age.
If the typical fourth grader can name planets in their order from the sun, she should also know that life is all related by descent from common ancestors. Life on Earth is One Big Extended Family.