Key Earth Science Links
Dinosaur Web Sites
Dinosauria. University of California Museum of Paleontology. An excellent starting point for everything you want to know about dinosaurs. Provides information on dinosaurs and other aspects of paleontology, dinosaur art and models, Dino Buzz, which discusses hot topics in dinosaurs, award-winning pages on dinosaur phylogentic systematics (evolutionary organization), links to virtual museum tours of dinosaurs, and links to other dinosaur sites.
Royal Tyrell Museum, Alberta, Canada. Provides excellent images of dinosaur skeletons from their museum, which houses one of the best collections of dinosaur skeletons in the world, with excellent summaries of various dinosaur species. At times connections to this site are slow.
Dino Russ's Lair. A service of the Illinois State Geological Survey Educational Extension Unit. If you want to find out about dinosaur bones being found out west by paleontologists from Illinois, join Russ on a virtual field trip. This site contains well-organized and evaluated descriptions of links concerning Dinosaur Art, Dinosaur Digs, Dinosaur Eggs, Dinosaur Exhibits, Dinosaur Information, and Locations and Sites to Visit.
Learning from the Fossil Record, Paleontological Society. An excellent resource. Provides more than 20 classroom activities about fossils and earth history, and has a National Science Standard Matrix with web links to more than 30 classroom activities, which demonstrate various aspects of the National Science Standards and are categorized by appropriate grade content. Activities about climate, dinosaurs, Earth history, fossils, and plate tectonics are just some of the topics offered.
Zoom Dinosaurs, Enchanted Learning Software®. A fun on-line textbook about dinosaurs designed for students of all ages. There are sections that describe dinosaurs, dinosaur anatomy, fossils, extinctions, a dinosaur dictionary, a Dinofun section with jokes, puzzles, and quizzes, and a Classroom Activities section with more than 20 activities. There is also an Ask a Question section, where teachers or students can email a question about dinosaurs to the website.
Newton’s Apple® . This popular PBS series has on-line versions of past shows, and each includes lesson plans for the classroom. Those concerning dinosaurs include:
Dinosaurs. Lesson plans developed through the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory for grades K-12 about dinosaurs. Lessons include Long Ago, Extinctions, Fossils, Types of Dinosaurs, Meat and Plant Eaters, The Dinosaur’s Life Cycle, and Nature and Change. There are also links to other dinosaur pages on the Web.
Walking with the dinosaurs. British Broadcasting Company. This web site was designed to accompany a presentation by the BBC on dinosaurs. It has some wonderful dinosaur art that can be downloaded as wallpaper for your computer, information on dinosaur trackways, T-rex, new dinosaur finds in South America, the origin of flight in birds, and some great links to specific dinosaur topics.
Dinosaurs & Prehistoric. National Geographic Kids. This web site has numerous features related to dinosaurs.
Draw T-Rex, Earth Science Education Network, Kentucky Geological Survey. In this activity, students actively participate in reconstructing what Tyrannosaurus rex looked like based on a T-rex skull. They will see how scientists reconstruct past life based on the anatomy of living animals. Worksheets are provided with the activity as pdf files. The activity can be used with an overhead, slide, or computer-screen projector.