This is an in-depth assignment to explore and write about the history of life as represented at the Museum of the Earth at the Paleontological Research Institution in Ithaca, New York. Students will examine several facets of paleontology: paleoecology, paleoclimate, geologic time, and mass extinctions.

This collection of resources, published by the American Museum of Natural History, is intended for educators, parents, students, or anyone who is interested in teaching and learning about science. The resources include activities, curriculum materials, articles, evidence and analysis materials, exhibition materials, and lists of references. Items may be text-based, pedagogical, or multimedia (photos, videos, interactives) in nature. The collection is searchable by keyword or browseable by main topic: anthropology, astronomy, biology, Earth science, or paleontology. There are also special collections, groups of resources organized around specific themes such as Antarctica, ocean life, and the dynamic Earth.

This quarter-long project forms the basis of a third-year course for majors and nonmajors at the University of Washington, Bothell called Science Methods and Practice. Students use databases to identify novel research questions, and extract data to test their hypotheses. They frame the question with primary literature, address the questions with inferential statistics, and discuss the results with more primary literature. The product is a scientific paper; each step of the process is scaffolded and evaluated. Given time limitations, we avoid devoting time to data collection; instead, we sharpen
students' ability to make sense of a large body of quantitative data, a situation they may rarely have encountered.

We treat statistics with a strictly conceptual, pragmatic, and abbreviated approach; i.e., we ask students to know which basic test to choose to assess a linear relationship vs. a difference between two means. We stress the need for a normal distribution
in order to use these tests, and how to interpret the results; we leave the rest for stats courses, and we do not teach the mathematics. This approach proves beneficial even to those who have already had a statistics course, because it is often the first time
they make decisions about applying statistics to their own research questions.

We incorporate peer review and collaborative work throughout the quarter. We form collaborative groups around the research questions they ask, enabling them to share primary literature they find, and preparing them well to review each other's writing. We encourage them to cite each other's work. They write formal peer reviews of each other's papers, and they submit their final paper with a letter-to-the-editor highlighting how their research has addressed previous feedback.

A major advantage of this course is that an instructor can easily modify it to suit any area of expertise. Students have worked with data about how a snail's morphology changes in response to its environment (Price, 2012), how students understand genetic drift (Price et al. 2014), maximum body size in the fossil record (Payne et al. 2008), range shifts (Ettinger et al. 2011), and urban crop pollination (Waters and Clifford 2014).

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This is a laboratory based assignment that is for Introductory level geoscience classes (Physical Geology, Historical Geology, Earth Science) that brings an authentic research experience to your students. In the assignment, students are asked to process and interpret screenwash from the 2004 Aurora Mastodont Project, and to contribute authentic research results to the ongoing post-dig analyses. Students then contribute their results to a database to compare theirs to their colleagues around the country. This is an ongoing and free exercise available by requesting samples of screenwash (details below). This is one of several exercises that I ask my Earth Science students to complete as an introduction to the nature of science and the geosciences, that I call GSI (GeoScience Investigations) which was presented as a poster during the 2013 GSA in Denver.

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This video segment describes how the Australopithecus afarensis skeleton known as Lucy could have been fossilized. Footage courtesy of NOVA: "In Search of Human Origins."

In this classroom activity, middle school students examine the wide-ranging sizes of dinosaurs. The activity opens with background information for teachers about the enormous range of dinosaur sizes. In a classroom discussion, students describe the size of some dinosaurs. Then, working from an existing grid, students create either a to-scale drawing of a Tyrannosaurus head or a life-size drawing of a Protoceratops.

Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Identify and describe the properties of lifeDescribe the levels of organization among living thingsRecognize and interpret a phylogenetic treeList examples of different sub disciplines in biology

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Identify and describe the properties of lifeDescribe the levels of organization among living thingsRecognize and interpret a phylogenetic treeList examples of different sub disciplines in biology

The 50-minute group-based activity for hundreds of students starts by constructing bio-zones for a given set of fossil ranges. Results are reviewed using a sequence of clicker questions to discuss the optimal biostratigraphic decisions, the necessary types of thinking, and how to articulate a concise yet complete textual description of corresponding biozones.

A set of stratigraphic logs is then used to interpret changes in depositional environment across space and time. Students also decide (and justify decisions) on the optimal choice of fossils for use when interpreting variations in depositional environment. The final result is an interpreted geologic section based on stratigraphic and biostratigraphic data.

This interpretive exercise is only three weeks into a first course on Earth and life through time, so guidance is provided using carefully designed question sequences posed using "clicker" (personal response system) and/or for individual or whole class discussion.

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In this video segment, ZOOM guest Cassie takes us on a tour of the coral reef near her home in Key Largo, Florida, and points out some of its unique features.

The goal of this pair of labs is for the students to learn to apply rock and fossil identification skills to determining rock formations, sedimentary depositional environments, age ranges, and, ultimately, to writing a geologic history of a sequence of rocks from Bryce, Zion, and Grand Canyons. During the first of the two labs, the students learn to make fossil and sedimentary structures identifications. They add these skills to their rock and mineral identification skills to make interpretations of the sedimentary environments along a generalized profile from terrestrial to offshore locations. During the second lab, they apply these skills to a sequence of rocks from the southwestern U.S. to interpret the environmental changes that have occurred over time. They also begin to learn how to use fossils to determine age ranges for these changing events. Once they put together all of their data, they construct a stratigraphic column and piece together a written narrative of the geologic history of the area. The students work in groups to collect their data and determine their stratigraphy. They write their geologic histories individually. The students learn how to apply their skills and knowledge to make interpretations and also learn how to support their determinations with data.

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Open access textbook about paleontology for advanced high school and introductory level college students.https://www.digitalatlasofancientlife.org/learn/

In this classroom activity, middle school students explore the Greek and Latin root words used to create dinosaur names. The activity opens with background information for teachers about how dinosaurs are named. As a class, students explore the Greek and Latin roots of the words photograph, terrace and other familiar terms. Working individually, students complete a worksheet that challenges them to translate the meaning of seven dinosaurs' names. Then, working in pairs, students create their own dinosaur; name it; and describe how it moves, what it eats, how it raises it young, and how it behaves.

In this activity, students play the roles of "time travel agents" creating an advertisement for a geologic time period which has been assigned to them. They will use the Earth Science Reference Tables (available on the internet) to learn some basic facts about their assigned period. A rubric for assessing student understanding is provided.

This activity is designed for large freshman courses (>200 students) and is used in-class. The activity requires a short (15 minute) overview of Earth history before students have the opportunity to work through various questions and problems. Tasks include simple math problems, critical thinking questions, and include place-based examples of geological situations for Arizona and California.

Students completing the activity will have knowledge of Earth history, knowledge of some geological disasters, and will have learned several different perspectives of timescales that affect various events on Earth.

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A classroom/lab activity using the Paleobiology Database to produce and interpret diversity curves for various groups of important and popular extinct animals, such as trilobites, ammonites, and dinosaurs. Activity helps students appreciate ancient life, geological time, and the important of mass extinctions in shaping the history of life, and by extension the implications of current extinctions.
Outcomes:

Research how extinct animals lived, what they looked like, when they lived, and when they went extinct.
Observe the geological timescale, name three geological eras, and use them to understand geological time.
Name five major mass extinctions and relate them to the eras in which they occurred.
Use the Paleobiology Database to produce diversity curves for an important group of extinct animals.
Interpret graphs of diversity curves to understand the importance of mass extinctions in the history of life.
(Optional) Communicate results of study to peers in class. In the process, synthesize information on multiple extinct animal groups to better appreciate the importance of extinctions in earth history.