almondbutterandjelly Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 So in my state, we need 4 Laboratory Sciences, only one of which needs to be either Biology, Chemistry, or Physics. We are doing Biology this year, so I figure we'll have more fun with the remaining classes. My dd is interested in studying Dinosaurs next year. What would I call the class? Dinosaur Paleontology? Dinosaur Paleobiology? Intro to Paleontology: Dinosaurs? Geology: Dinosaurs? Help me, Science-y people. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandra Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 Is this for high school? An elective on dinosaurs at the high scool level would be unusual, and it might prove difficult to find enough laboratory work in the subject. A typical geology course, however, often consists of half a year of physical geology and half a year of historical geology, which includes paleontology of course. Four lab sciences seems like a lot. Is that four year long lab sciences? Just curious. Also you sounded as though biology was not fun? It can be wonderful! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
almondbutterandjelly Posted September 21, 2015 Author Share Posted September 21, 2015 Thanks for your reply. Good questions. This is for high school. Our state universities have the same entrance requirements as our state's graduation plan, and they want 4 year-long laboratory sciences. Biology is fun, but so are dinosaurs :) I thought I would take advantage of the fact that we homeschool and can do more fun sciences than your typical high school offerings. I think we can figure out enough material to spend a whole year on dinosaurs, plus enough labs (although some may be more geology or fossil oriented). I'm not looking for "rigor," necessarily. Just learning and retaining. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twigs Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 Maybe do a geology class, with an emphasis on prehistoric geology and fossils. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
almondbutterandjelly Posted September 21, 2015 Author Share Posted September 21, 2015 What if we used this textbook: Dinosaurs: A Concise Natural History as our spine? What should I name the class that would be acceptable for the name of a high school laboratory science? http://www.amazon.com/Dinosaurs-Concise-David-E-Fastovsky/dp/0521282373/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1442844631&sr=8-1&keywords=dinosaurs+a+concise+natural+history Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 How does one do a lab about dinosaurs??? It seems to me a great fabulous elective - but as a lab science? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
almondbutterandjelly Posted September 21, 2015 Author Share Posted September 21, 2015 Well, from some various sources, so far I have: Simulating how deposited sediments form layers in the bottom of a lake Simulating radioactive decay and the dating of a fossilized bone Make a scale model of a dinosaur and determine its weight There are also some neat experiments in Dinosaur Discovery: Everything you need to be a paleontologist with more than 25 experiments. http://www.amazon.com/Dinosaur-Discovery-Everything-Need-Paleontologist/dp/1416947647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1442852267&sr=8-1&keywords=dinosaur+discovery 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
almondbutterandjelly Posted September 21, 2015 Author Share Posted September 21, 2015 So would it be better to just call it geology and then we can sort of subfocus on dinosaurs? I'm thinking of the thread about nontraditional sciences. So I should perhaps use a geology book as a spine? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
almondbutterandjelly Posted September 21, 2015 Author Share Posted September 21, 2015 Hmm. Or maybe Paleontology? Or Geology: Age of Dinosaurs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foxbridgeacademy Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 I'd probably go with Paleontology or just plain Geology (i'm also having trouble naming a course). I'd spend about 1/4 of the time on Geology, 1/2 on Dinosaurs, and a 1/4 on evolution of species. I would use several books as a spine, pulling what I want from each. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
almondbutterandjelly Posted September 21, 2015 Author Share Posted September 21, 2015 Thanks, foxbridge! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swimmermom3 Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 What year in school is your student and what other laboratory science courses has he or she taken? I think this information, in part, is going to dictate how you name and write up the class. Also, I don't know if I would sweat the name of the course if I didn't have the content nailed down. What is it about dinosaurs that your student wants to study? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiana Posted September 21, 2015 Share Posted September 21, 2015 Does it have to be dinosaurs specifically? I think that her interest in dinosaurs could very easily be tied in to a historical geology class which would sound much more traditional and still have a large focus on dinosaurs. This would have the advantage that you could easily get a ready-made textbook and laboratory manual. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
almondbutterandjelly Posted September 22, 2015 Author Share Posted September 22, 2015 Does it have to be dinosaurs specifically? I think that her interest in dinosaurs could very easily be tied in to a historical geology class which would sound much more traditional and still have a large focus on dinosaurs. This would have the advantage that you could easily get a ready-made textbook and laboratory manual. Great idea! I ordered a couple books off of Amazon. Thanks for that thought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarenNC Posted September 29, 2015 Share Posted September 29, 2015 I just came across this Coursera class in Dinosaur Paleobiology (starts in Jan) that might give you ideas https://www.coursera.org/course/dino101 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweet Home Alabama Posted September 29, 2015 Share Posted September 29, 2015 Just curious... Is there a lot of streaming in the Coursera class? We have satellite internet with limited monthly data; we have to be careful. Ds, 10th grade, LOVES dinosaurs and would enjoy a class like this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
almondbutterandjelly Posted September 29, 2015 Author Share Posted September 29, 2015 I just came across this Coursera class in Dinosaur Paleobiology (starts in Jan) that might give you ideas https://www.coursera.org/course/dino101 Yes, I had seen that. I'm not sure if I can get a whole year out of it, though, plus labs. I have a syllabus of a dinosaur class from a different school that also calls it Dinosaur Paleobiology, though. I'm not sure what "paleobiology" is, and the class is a 300 level, which to me is junior level, at university. I don't want to misrepresent what we're doing. Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm supposed to receive my historical geology textbook today, and hopefully that will work as a jumping off point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarenNC Posted September 29, 2015 Share Posted September 29, 2015 Yes, I had seen that. I'm not sure if I can get a whole year out of it, though, plus labs. I have a syllabus of a dinosaur class from a different school that also calls it Dinosaur Paleobiology, though. I'm not sure what "paleobiology" is, and the class is a 300 level, which to me is junior level, at university. I don't want to misrepresent what we're doing. Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm supposed to receive my historical geology textbook today, and hopefully that will work as a jumping off point. You might be able to combine it with other sources--we're doing that with a couple of edX courses for sociology. IIRC, Coursera has the ability for the student to download the videos to save, so you might consider that if they are helpful and you won't be accessing the course when it's live. Sweet Home Alabama, could you go somewhere with free wifi periodically and download the videos to a laptop for use later? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted September 29, 2015 Share Posted September 29, 2015 My middle schoolers are doing Dino 101 from Coursera right now. It's an excellent course. I highly recommend it. They also asked to study dinosaurs this year. We have not had trouble finding labs that I think are suitable for middle school - I'm not sure that it would be "enough" for high school though. We've been on one dino dig and will go to at least one more - if they were doing this for high school for credit, I think I'd require that they be out there every time it's offered, honestly. I think actually being in the field and looking with the real paleontologists ought to be considered a lab. They do it here twice a month. They are doing a free hands on thing with fossils at a lab that's offered for middle and high school. I think that should count. We've also been making use of the fossil collection that's available to the public at the Smithsonian. There's a number of hands on stuff. Sort of a lab... I would compare it to some high school bio labs where you're doing identification stuff for the lab component. Not sure how that's "officially" handled, but that was certainly a lab when I was in school - it's like looking at cells or as part of dissection. Not a lab, but we're also hoping to see a couple of talks by paleontologists that are coming up later this year. Basically, I've been surprised how much there was to do for this and how much of it was accessible for us and also not babyish. This has been one of our better science topics. Granted, it's middle, not high school, but I think you could up the expectations and work it into a year of science with labs somehow at that level. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweet Home Alabama Posted September 30, 2015 Share Posted September 30, 2015 Karen, we could run to our local library. It is not always convenient to stop what we're doing to go there. I really don't know anything about using Coursera. Is it the type of thing that we could go to our library at the beginning of the course and download everything we would need? Or even go once a week or every two weeks? If we had to go every day, I would think that to be too hard. Since you are familiar with other courses, would you tell me how difficult they are? What are assignments like? My ds knows a great deal about dinosaurs, but I have no idea what level class the dino class is. You might be able to combine it with other sources--we're doing that with a couple of edX courses for sociology. IIRC, Coursera has the ability for the student to download the videos to save, so you might consider that if they are helpful and you won't be accessing the course when it's live. Sweet Home Alabama, could you go somewhere with free wifi periodically and download the videos to a laptop for use later? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarenNC Posted September 30, 2015 Share Posted September 30, 2015 Karen, we could run to our local library. It is not always convenient to stop what we're doing to go there. I really don't know anything about using Coursera. Is it the type of thing that we could go to our library at the beginning of the course and download everything we would need? Or even go once a week or every two weeks? If we had to go every day, I would think that to be too hard. Since you are familiar with other courses, would you tell me how difficult they are? What are assignments like? My ds knows a great deal about dinosaurs, but I have no idea what level class the dino class is. I'm actually more familiar with edX, since we are currently using a full course right now for sociology. The classes are typically aimed at undergraduate college level. I've looked at some Coursera material and downloaded some of their videos in the past, but not used a full class. My suggestion was that perhaps you could enroll, since it's free, then go once a week and download the videos and any other material (readings, etc) to incorporate into current or future lessons. You don't have to complete the course online with the discussions, etc if it doesn't work out. For edX, the material is put up once a week and the student works at their own pace through the week. It's readings, videos, and comprehension exercises (computer-graded multiple choice quizzes), unit quizzes (computer-scored mc) then participation in discussion boards--posting responses and responding to others. My daughter has also had to do a short essay (self-graded with a rubric) and a 4-6 page research paper, which is uploaded and peer-reviewed by two other students (she in turn does a peer review on two other students' papers which are assigned to her). I don't believe we have the option to download and save the videos in edX, but not sure, since we have a good connection, are using it as it runs rather than saving for later, and it isn't a concern, so I haven't looked for it. We will be using another edX course as well for this class. It's archived, so she won't be able to participate in discussions and there won't be peer-review, instead I'll have to grade it. This particular Coursera dino course lists the following for course format: "The class will consist of lecture videos, which are 1-2 minutes in length, interposed with integrated quiz questions in addition to a unit test after each of the 12 lessons." There are some recommended books that you may find useful: "Although the lectures are designed to be self-contained, there are many good books available on dinosaurs. Recent books we can recommend for the interested students include: The Complete Dinosaur, 2nd edition, (edited by Brett-Surman, Holtz and Farlow), Indiana University Press Dinosaur Paleobiology (by S. Brusatte), Wiley Blackwell." Since you are planning the course for next year, it might be worth seeing if you could get a copy of these through interlibrary loan to check out and see if they are worth buying to use for your own class. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted September 30, 2015 Share Posted September 30, 2015 Since we're in that Coursera class I can tell you that all the material was loaded at once and you can self pace it. If you have an app to download the videos, then I assume you could do it all at once along with the course notes and be done. I'm not sure how it would work for the interactive elements, which are embedded in the videos. And I'm not sure how it would work for the quizzes either, where you submit your answers online. Not all Coursera classes work this way - it's up to the institution/instructor as to how they're going to set it up. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.