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SOUTH DAKOTA
SCHOOL OF MINES
& TECHNOLOGY
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BLAHST-Teacher Workshop on Fossils
Julia Sankey and Dean Pearson (left) with teachers at the Hell Creek Formation in North Dakota.
This six day workshop was on dinosaurs and other fossils. Children are naturally curious about fossils and know a lot about them because of Jurassic Park and other movies. Dinosaurs provide a great opportunity to teach children about science: you already have their attention and they are already interested. The trick is to maintain and build on this curiosity.
Many scientific concepts can be taught in relation to fossils: geologic time, plate tectonics, climate change, mass extinctions, evolution, and other important topics. The idea behind this workshop was to stimulate the TEACHERS' interests in fossils and to provide them with information and resources in order to feel comfortable teaching about dinosaurs.
In particular, the workshop focused on the dinosaurs of our area, South and North Dakota (67 to 65 million years ago). Therefore, the dinosaurs that lived during the Late Cretaceous geologic period but did not survive into the next period, which is the Tertiary. We also discussed extinction theories using the disappearance of the dinosaurs as the primary example, especially because the world's best record of the end of the dinosaurs is in this area of North America.
The workshop spent three days at SDSM&T. The time on campus included slide shows, videos on dinosaurs, hands-on exercises, tours of fossil exhibits, and a visit to the paleontology lab and collections. We also studied the dinosaurs on permanent display in the Museum of Geology (SDSM&T); these are from our area. However, we also took advantage of two important, but temporary dinosaur exhibits: "Great Russian Dinosaurs" (Museum of Geology, SDSM&T) and "Dinosaurs of Darkness" (Children's Science Center).
There were also three days of field trips in South and North Dakota. The first field trip was in the Black Hills and included visits to the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, a nearby Cretaceous mystery track site, and other stops.
The second field trip was to Badlands National Park and included a stop to collect invertebrate fossils, a short hike to see vertebrate fossils, and a visit to the Pig Dig.
The final trip was to Bowman, North Dakota where we visited the Pioneer Trails Regional Museum and hiked in the dinosaur-rich Hell Creek Formation.
The teachers learned skills they could take back to the classroom such as how to use topographic and geologic maps and digital cameras. After the workshop, the teachers knew more about fossils and they had gained knowledge and skills that they could apply to their classes. Most importantly, they had gained the confidence to include dinosaurs and related scientific topics into their classes.
The workshop emphasized observation and note-taking, two important scientific habits. In order to bring as much information as possible from this workshop into the classroom, each teacher took thorough notes and lots of photographs and slides.
The workshop was sponsored by the BLAHST Project, was funded through the National Science Foundation, and had cooperation from the Belle Fourche, Douglas, Kadoka, Lead-Deadwood, Meade, New Underwwod, Spearfish, and Wall School Districts. Thanks for help from Dr. William Roggenthen (SDSM&T), Janet Lillehaug (BHSU), Mike Greenwald and Ellen Starck (SDSM&T), Dr. Larrry Agenbroad (Mammoth Site), Students at the Badland's Pig Dig (SDSM&T), and Dean Pearson (Pioneer Trails Regional Museum).
READING ASSIGNMENTS FROM:
1) Paleontology of Higher Vertebrates: A Practical Guide. N.R. King, 2000
2) Dinosaurs of Darkness. T.H. Rich and P. Vickers-Rich
2000
3) The Great Russian Dinosaurs. P. Vickers-Rich and T.H. Rich, 1999
4) Roadside Geology of South Dakota. John Paul Gries, 1996
5) Mammoth Site at Hot Springs. Larry Agenbroad
6) Road Log Badlands Field Trip Geology of the Black Hills, South Dakota and Wyoming. J.P. Gries and J.E. Martin, 1985
7) D.E. Fastovsky. 1987. Paleoenvironments of vertebrate-bearing strata during the Cretaceous-Paleogene transition, Eastern Montana and Western North Dakota.
8) R.E. Sloan. 1897. Upper Cretaceous-Paleocene sequence, Bug Creek area, northeastern Montana.
9) K.R. Johnson, D.J. Nichols, M. Attrep, and C.J. Orth. 1989. High-resolution leaf-fossil record spanning the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary.
10) K.R. Johnson and L.J. Hickey. 1990. Megafloral change across the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary in the northern Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, U.S.A.
11) K.R. Johnson. 1992. Leaf-fossil evidence for extensive floral extinction at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, North Dakota, U.S.A.
12) J.D. Archibald. 1996. Who's Who of the Late Cretaceous.
13) K.R. Johnson. 1997. Hell Creek Flora
14) D.F. Lofgren. 1997. Hell Creek Formation.
DINOSAUR WEB SITES:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/
http://www.tyrrellmuseum.com/index.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dinosaurs/index.shtml
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dinosaurs/
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/index.html
http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/jdp.htm
http://www.search4dinosaurs.com
http://www.dinodata.net/
http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Dell/2237/index.html
http://www.3d-dinosaurs-pictures.com/index.html
http://www.britannica.com/
http://www.discovery.com/guides/dinos/dinos.html
http://encarta.msn.com/find/Concise.asp?z=1&pg=2&ti=05589000
http://www.sciam.com/
http://www.nmnh.si.edu/paleo/dino/
http://www.vertpaleo.org/
http://www.isgs.uiuc.edu/dinos/GIFs_path.html
Contact: Gale Bishop
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Last Modified: 06/14/2001 |
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