Week 11 (Mar. 17 - Mar. 24)

We have come to the end of what has been a very enjoyable quarter for me. I have appreciated your perceptive and informative contributions to this blog over the past months. Thank you for creating a very fun public commmunication venue!

To draw together this quarter's experience, I would like to ask for any insights or reflections that you might like to share about this class. How might this class integrate into your thinking in the future? In other words, what do you think you might remember about our studies in ten years from now!

You may not recall anything too much in ten years, especially if this course is filling a science requirement but the subject did not have as much intrinsic interest for you. I have had such experiences!

Or you might take away a different perspective on science altogether. Do you think that anything learned about science over the last 11 weeks might have an affect on how you will view popular debates on climate warming or nuclear energy or any future controversies? Perhaps, instead of taking away ideas, you might just remember the way your classmates openly shared their thoughts and humor! Or maybe you have just liked understanding dinosaurs a little better. At the same time, you might have come to the conclusion that you never want to see another cladogram again!

Whatever you take away from this class and think might stick with you awhile in the future, it has been been pleasure to explore ideas and new insights with you in the present (and ancient past)!

Week 10 (Mar. 10 - Mar. 16)

It has been wonderful to read and learn from all the good information, good insights and good ideas that have been shared on this blog over the last 10 weeks! How about we use this week to appreciate each other's contributions?

Please read over the comments made by your colleagues over this quarter and pick just a couple to acknowledge and express what you valued about them. Of course, just choosing a couple could be challenging -- everyone has made an impact!

So think of this request to be NOT about choosing the "best ones" but just about pointing out a couple of the postings to represent ones that may have especially struck a chord with you. And please share why you appreciate them!

Week 9 (Mar. 3 - Mar. 9)

It was a delight to read last week about the surprises and insights that have been part of our dinosaur studies this quarter!

Now imagine that somehow you have received an opportunity to fit in a little more paleontological adventure into your already over-packed home life and work time! You have funding and "free time" for about 3 months. You could join a specific team doing some of the research we have read about in our textbook and online. Or you could accompany and interview specific scientists as they work. Or you could go out and explore on your own with the knowledge you now have.

What research area would inspire you? Where would you go? Who would be on your list to interview and/or work with? Be specific as to projects, people and locations! Maybe Morocco excites you and you would like to join Dr. Paul Serino and the National Geographic funded research on new and impressive theropods (http://www.paulsereno.org/paulsereno/expeditions/m_1995.htm). But that research occurred about a decade ago so maybe too late to be part of it!

Please report on an area of dinosaur study that especially interests you. Then search out some relatively recent research and report on who is doing it and where it is occurring. Why did you pick what you did? Include a URL so we all can come along!

p.s. I will ask some professional paleontologists to comment here on your choices and also to provide us with an insight into what they are working on and why they enjoy what they do!

Week 8 (Feb. 24 - Mar. 2)

In this class, we have now studied and discussed a good "sampling" of the great variety of dinosaur shapes, sizes and behaviors. Has your perception of a "dinosaur" changed? What have you learned that has surprised you the most? What concept or information has perhaps changed your understanding of dinosaurs from what it was before this class?

Or maybe none of this has really been surprising because of your basic knowledge from the start. Certainly there are many more sources of information now than when I was growing up! Entertaining and informative programs include the NOVA and National Geographic series and BBC productions. Many richly illustrated dinosaur books are available. And then we have more realistic movies (like Jurassic Park), at least more realistic than the ones I saw in the 50's and 60's!

So are there still great surprises when you study dinosaurs in more detail? Or does what you have learned so far fall right into place with your expectations?

Thanks for sharing what you have experienced in these ways.

Week 7 (Feb. 17 - Feb. 23)

Over the last few weeks we have been studying a variety of evidence aimed toward better understanding dinosaur behavior in the very ancient past. Some interpretations presented in our textbook are more convincing than others!

It seems as though newer dinosaur discoveries and ideas emerge almost daily! One website which provides the general public with the latest news on dinosaur research and ideas on what it all means is http://news.discovery.com/dinosaurs/.

Our goal this week is to try to use the critical thinking skills we have been practicing to decide how strongly supported some of the new hypotheses really are. Please closely read one of the news reports on this website, provide the rest of us with a good summary of it, and explain why certain ideas and conclusions in the report are more convincing to you and why certain others are not. In other words, what is most speculative and why! Please be sure to pick a news report that has not yet been reviewed by another member of this class and has not already been posted to this blog!

Week 6 (Feb. 10 - Feb. 16)

We are now on our 3-month excursion across the USA to visit the dinosaur sites we have identified and researched. We are documenting our trip by recording videos as we come across interesting paleontological or geological sights.

For example, in New York State (the state that I chose), we were looking for the Coelophysis site that I described last week. On our way, we stopped in the Adirondack Mountains, about 300 miles north of New York City, at the location of an ancient lake formed during the ice ages. When this lake eventually broke through the glacial moraine we are standing on, the incredible flood rushed south, broke through a major ridge and formed New York's harbor at the mouth of the Hudson River. This video captures that event: How the Earth Was Made: New York.

You too need to document our trip through the state you have been researching. What did we see? Can you provide a video that shows what we experienced or explains what we learned? I did a video search for "New York dinosaurs" on Google which led me to youtube where I found the video above. The video you find does not need to tie into your specific dinosaur site -- but it would be ideal if it did. Some videos were taken by folks visiting national or state parks containing interviews with rangers.

Whatever you find for your dinosaur site or, at least, your researched state, please provide the link and an explanation of how the video ties into our imaginary trip!

Week 5 (Feb. 3 - Feb. 9)

We have researched a good deal of territory during the past two weeks and have located many dinosaur fossil localities for our summer-long field trip. The blue dots in the map represent the additional sites we added this week to the earlier ones (red dots) identified last week.

But our research is not over! In order to add important perspective to our travel across the United States, we need to educate ourselves about the paleontology and geology of the states we are visiting. For each locality, what is the most readable literature for fresh paleontologists?

I added a locality to the map as well in a state no one else had chosen. Near Nyack, new York, a rare set of tracks from a Coelophysis (carnivorous theropod dinosaur) have been found. In order to prepare for this excursion, I searched online for appropriate books to obtain to bring along. Just searching on Amazon and Google for "New York dinosaurs and geology", I found what appear to be two good, introductory books that will provide me with a bit of background knowledge on what we will find. They are "The World of Coelophysis -- A New York Dinosaur of 200 Million Years Ago" by D Fisher and published in 1981 (only 1 paperback copy is left on Amazon!!) and "Geology of New York: A Simplified Account" published by the New York State Museum in 2000.

Please do the same. Pick one of the locales that you researched and contributed to our trip during the past two weeks. Then find two good books to bring along with us to provide us with some basic background on what we will see (in terms of rocks and fossils) as we travel in that state. One book should be informative about the very site we will visit. Provide the titles, authors and years of publication along with some comments on why you chose the books that you did.

With this literature in hand, the right tools for exploration, camping equipment for roughing it and a large enough van for all of us (!), we'll be ready to set out on an incredible learning experience!