Re: PaleoEducation Outline

["Ken Kinman" <kinman@hotmail.com>]

   After writing the following, I read Patricia's post.  She has a lot of 
good suggestions!  However, I would avoid getting too bogged down with a lot 
of dinosaur details at the expense of other organisms (including plants) and 
other time periods.
      ------Good luck,    Ken
Tiffany,
    Before you get into anything specific like dinosaurs, I would start 
with an overview of two things: (1) the breadth of paleontological study 
(i.e., it's not just bones and shells, but also bacteria, plants, protists, 
worms, tracks, chemical fossils, or any other traces life has left);
     and (2) a brief review of the geological timescale and perhaps a few 
examples of where important evolutionary developments began, such as the 
first cells in the fossil record some 3.5 billion years ago, the origin of 
Metazoans later in the Precambrian, and the important invasions of land in 
the Early Paleozoic (primitive land plants, the myriapods and scorpions in 
the Silurian, followed soon after in the Devonian by various arachnids, 
insects, and hungry amphibians wanting to eat all these goodies).  And of 
course, the two major extinctions which marked the beginning and end of the 
Mesozoic.
    Once you establish an overview, you can get into more specific areas, 
such as the diversification of fishes and invertebrates in the early 
Paleozoic, the explosion of land life during the Devonian and Carboniferous, 
the Mesozoic history of reptiles, birds, and mammals, or any other areas 
that you think you classmates might find interesting (the Cambrian fauna is 
always a favorite).  I would generally try to put these subjects in 
chronological order, but that's just my personal preference.
    You might find some good ideas at the site of the paleontology museum 
at UC Berkeley:
    http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu
*******************************************
> From: Tiff <t7i5ff@yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: t7i5ff@yahoo.com
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 08:12:33 -0700 (PDT)
>
> Hello, I was just curious if someone could help me. In
> my Science class, we were asked to choose our own
> topics, I picked Paleontology. Since my teacher isn't
> very knowledgeable on the topic, he suggested that I
> teach that week. I was wondering if anyone could
> suggest some good points to cover for a week
> discussion for a group of high school seniors. Any
> suggestions would be of great help to me.
> Thank you in advance.
> Tiffany


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