Welcome to the Teacher Guide for Britannica.com’s Discovering Dinosaurs Activity Guide. The four activities on this site are suggested for use in schools or by students and parents at home. The activities are self-guided and promote critical thinking. They are also interactive, inviting students to locate, evaluate, and compare sources of information on the Internet. Two of the student activities on this site are suggested for elementary students (grades 4-6), two are intended for middle-school students (grades 6-8). However, you may use any activity at either level, depending on your curriculum needs and on the abilities of your students.

Below are links to pages for teachers. Each page includes correlations to national standards, teaching suggestions for a student activity, and a list of additional resources. We suggest that you preview each student activity before beginning, especially by investigating some of the Web links included in the activity. You may find these helpful in your planning.

We hope you find these activities both engaging and informative.

Teacher Guide, Activity 1: My Adopted Dinosaur Grades 4-6 Discover a new dinosaur, draw and describe it, and tell how it lived in its environment. Time: 2-3 days   Teacher Guide, Activity 2: Did You Have Dinosaur for Dinner Yesterday? Grades 4-6 Write a newspaper article explaining the theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Time: 3-5 days   Teacher Guide, Activity 3: Where Did Everybody Go? Grades 6-8 Why did the dinosaurs go extinct? Research some of the theories and defend one theory in a conference with other paleontologists. Time: 2-4 days   Teacher Guide, Activity 4: What’s New? Grades 6-8 Meet a paleontologist from the 1800s and write a booklet to bring him up to date on changes in dinosaur theory since his time. Time: 4-6 days

The amount of time you and your students devote to these activities will vary according to factors such as the following: your school schedule– regular, block, team, self-contained class, or other variation use of activity as part of a regular curriculum unit, as a special project, or as extra credit frequency of science lessons or classes availability of Internet access in school and/or at home The suggested time for each activity reflects the amount of time in which each task could be accomplished without compromising the quality of the student’s processes or outcomes.