A dinosaur defined
Students answer questions about how the definition of a dinosaur is changing with new scientific evidence.
Educator Guide: What Makes a Dinosaur?
BEASTLY BREAKOUT While some scientists question the features that define ancient reptiles, others are uprooting the dino family tree altogether.
GLUIKI/SHUTTERSTOCK
About this guide
The article “What makes a dinosaur?” describes how new fossil evidence could make defining a dinosaur and describing the dinosaur family tree more difficult than was previously believed. Students can focus on information and graphs reported in the article, follow connections to earlier articles about dinosaurs and pursue cross-curricular connections in earth and biological sciences and engineering. In a related activity, students can study and identify characteristics on a number of real fossils.
This Guide Includes:
Dino discoveries add up
From feathers to extinction, there's a lot to learn about dinosaurs in the Science News archive.
Journey to the age of the dinosaurs
These discussion prompts cover the major groups of dinosaurs and their time on Earth, as well as how we study them today.
Land of the lost
In this activity, students will identify fossils using hand magnifiers or stereomicroscopes, determine which era each fossil is from and how the fossils might have formed over time.