Dayton, Tennessee, the site of the 1925 Scopes evolution trial, is surrounded by a rich natural museum of Paleozoic sedimentary rocks that exemplifies Earth history literacy principles, in accord with those identified in the Next Generation Science Standards. A guide for a loop drive from Chattanooga to Dayton and Sequatchie Valley combines a visit to the site of the trial, analyzing its lessons for science educators, with a tour of sites where, with minimal jargon, evidence for the following principles is demonstrated:

• Sedimentary structures such as mud cracks and crossbeds record processes similar to those that deposit sediment in modern environments.

• Strata can be divided into rock units recognized over great distances.

• Fossils and their modes of preservation document the history of life, and give evidence of past environments.

• A succession of thousands of feet of sedimentary rock records hundreds of specific changes in sediment supply, water depth, and climatic conditions.

• The fact that diverse environments near sea level are recorded in great thicknesses of rock is powerful evidence of slow gradual subsidence, as opposed to a single flooding event followed by rapid sedimentation.

• Recorded changes in sediment supply and water depth provide evidence of the rise and erosion of nearby land, as well as continual moderate fluctuations in sea level.

• Originally horizontal rock layers have been disturbed in systematic ways traced to specific past plate tectonic events.

• These concepts were developed, in part, to help find mineral resources, and they prove their predictive value daily, for example, in locating deeply buried petroleum.