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What's New? (Grades 6-8)
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- Activity 4
- Scientific theories are always changing as scientists continue to make new discoveries. What your parents learned about dinosaurs is probably different from what you are learning. Your children may learn something even more different about dinosaurs. You may wonder how our knowledge of dinosaurs can change so much when dinosaurs themselves haven’t changed since their extinction 66 million years ago. Ideas in science change because of new evidence and new ways of interpreting old evidence.
Imagine that a time machine has brought an important paleontologist forward in time to attend a meeting of modern paleontologists. Before this scientist attends the meeting, you must bring him up to date on developments that have affected his original findings. Work with your classmates to do research and write a booklet that describes how ideas have evolved since the paleontologist first made his discovery and/or developed his theory.
- Objectives
- Students will work with classmates to research how a theory related to dinosaurs has changed over the past 80-90 years.
- Students will write and assemble a booklet describing how theories about dinosaurs have changed over time, when the theories changed, and what happened to make them change.
- Activity 4
- Arrange for 1½-2 hours Internet access over 2 or more days for all students in the class. Let students know at the beginning of their computer period how long they should expect to spend on the two phases of research: about 30-40 minutes on the paleontologist and the remainder of the time on updates to the paleontologist’s theory.
- This activity is a good opportunity to pair up Web-savvy students with Net neophytes, provided you can trust both members of a pair to do the work and share the results with each other. Students at a beginner’s level can research those sites for which links have been provided in the activity. Advanced students can use search tools such as Britannica.com or the AltaVista Advanced Search Page to turn up additional sites. Both students work together to produce the booklet.
- Desktop publishing software will be useful for students in assembling their booklets. Depending on the availability of printers in your school, students may download or print out illustrations from the Web site or make their own drawings. You may wish to download or print out an illustration yourself before allowing students to do so, to determine how long it takes your system to do these tasks.
- focus on a specific dinosaur theory, through three or four of the time periods listed in the Discovering Dinosaurs Spotlight
- describe the theory clearly and concisely, and include specifics about new information that prompted changes in the theory
- include clear illustrations where they are needed for a complete understanding of a theory or model
- Make sure students understand that the research phase of this project has two steps. The first step is to find out about the work of a specific paleontologist. Once students have completed that step, they need to shift focus to learning about the subject that the paleontologist studied.
- Remind students to make good use of time as they are working on the Internet, and help them to stay focused. If a student finds a particular site difficult to understand or is having trouble finding relevant information on that site, then it’s time to move on to another.
- Illustrations and models make many theories easier to understand. Encourage students to include pictures and diagrams in their booklets. Side-by-side illustrations comparing two different theories are especially helpful for highlighting changes in theory. Pictures may be downloaded from sites, student-drawn, or scanned from other sources.
- Mock Conference: After students have completed their booklets, they may be interested in staging a conference of historical and modern paleontologists. A student from each group may take on the role of the historical paleontologist whom that group researched. Other students may take on roles of more modern paleontologists. Each scientist, in turn, could present his or her findings, with a question-and-answer period following. Remind students that scientists do not always agree, even in the face of new evidence!
- This section contains links to an online bookstore, Amazon.com, which will enable you to order many of the titles listed below.
For adults
- Colbert, Edwin Harris, The Great Dinosaur Hunters and Their Discoveries. Dover Publications, 1984.
For readers ages 9-12
- Aaseng, Nathan, American Dinosaur Hunters. Enslow Publishers, Inc., 1996.
- This book offers biographies of ten important American paleontologists.
- Clinton, Susan, Reading Between the Bones: The Pioneers of Dinosaur Paleontology (Lives in Science). Franklin-Watts, 1997
- The author profiles eight of the people whose study of dinosaurs has shaped the field of paleontology over the past two hundred years.
- Holmes, Thom, and Cameron Clement (illustrator), Fossil Feud: The Rivalry of the First American Dinosaur Hunters. Julian Messner, 1997.
- This follows the true story of the bitter rivalry between American paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh in the latter half of the 1800s.
CORRELATIONS TO NATIONAL SCIENCE EDUCATION STANDARDS
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Grades 5-8
Content Standard A: Science as Inquiry
Recognize and analyze alternative explanations and predictions
Understandings about scientific inquiry
Content Standard G: History and Nature of Science
Science as a human endeavor
Nature of science
History of science
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT top of page
ASSESSMENT/EVALUATION top of page
Well-written booklets will
Skills Development: understanding theories, thinking critically, summarizing, researching, writing process
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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES top of page