This is a module of flexible outcomes. Students can derive a variety of skills and facts from the problem of dinosaur extinction. At the end of this module, the students should be able to:
- Recognize
the relationships between alternative explanations and evidence in scientific
inquiry;
- Demonstrate
a facility for using computer-driven problems;
- Recognize
the importance of remote sensing in providing us with knowledge and
understanding unobtainable from our Earth-bound perspective;
- List and
date the three geologic periods of dinosaur history;
- List the
possible causes of extinction;
- Understand
how dinosaurs are classified;
- Explain
how an asteroid/comet impact could have jeopardized dinosaurs;
- Explain
how a series of contemporary volcanic eruptions could have jeopardized
dinosaurs;
- Explain
how orbital change could have jeopardized the dinosaurs;
- Explain
how disease affects reptiles and could have possibly affected dinosaurs;
- Explain
how change in vegetation from predominantly conifers and ferns to flowering
plants and grasses could have affected dinosaurs;
- Explain
how tectonic activity can alter the location of the continents and thus
alter their ecologies.
