DINOSAURS SYLLABUS

DINOSAURS: EVOLUTION and EXTINCTION

  1. Discovering Dinosaurs
    1. Fossils and Rocks
    2. Types of Rocks
    3. Types of Dinosaur Fossils
    4. Age of Rocks and Dating Fossil Records
  1. A Little Dinosaur History
    1. First Dinosaur Discovery
    2. Reverend William Buckland
    3. Dr. Gideon and Mary Ann Mantell
    4. Sir Richard Owen
    5. Joseph Leidy
    6. Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh
  1. Super Continents and Plate Tectonics
    1. Pangea, Laurasia, and Gondwana
    2. Plate Tectonics
    3. Tethys Ocean and Shallow Seas
  1. Geological Eras/Climate
    1. Paleozoic
    2. Mesozoic: Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous
    3. Cenozoic
  1. Dinosaur Skeleton
    1. Anatomical Directions
    2. The Skull
    3. Axial Skeleton
    4. Appendicular Skeleton (limbs and girdles)
  1. Taxonomy and Cladograms
    1. Structure and Form
    2. Synapomorphies, Plesiomorphies, Apomorphies
    3. Clades and Nodes
    4. Anapsids, Synapsids, Diapsids
  1. Dinosauria
    1. Saurischia
    2. Theropoda
    3. Sauropodomorpha
  1. The Ornithischia
    1. Thyreophora - synapomorphies
    2. Ornithopoda - synapomorphies
    3. Marginocephalia - synapomorphies
  1. Sauropodomorphia
    1. Sauropoda - synapomorphies
    2. Titanosauriformes - synapomorphies
  1.  Theropoda
    1. Tetenures - synapomorphies
    2. Carnosauria - synapomorphies
    3. Maniraptores - synapomorphies
  1.  Dragons of the Sea: Marine Reptiles and Pterosaurs
    1. Mosasaurs
    2. Plesiosaurs
    3. Turtles
    4. Pterosaurs
  12.    Extinction Theories
    1. Meteors
    2. The K/T Boundary
    3. Climate
    4. Disease
    5. Mammals