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Dinosaurs are a group of reptiles that include birds and all other reptiles more closely related to birds than other reptiles. They share the characteristic of having a hole through the hip socket.
€ Dinosaurs are an example of a very successful group of organisms that were the dominant land animals for 140 million years. The direct descendants of small carnivorous theropod dinosaurs are alive today: we call them birds and they are still more diverse than mammals, dominating the air. They were and are a part of our world, and through understanding dinosaurs we can also get a feel for how science works.€ An understanding of dinosaurs gives us an overall understanding of the history of life, a sense of scale in time, in size, and importance.
€ Their time, the Mesozoic Period, was a hot-house world, with no polar ice caps and is indeed the kind of world we are probably hurtling towards because of our input of extra greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Their time is a natural experiment in our future.
€ Finally, they are fun and spectacular - monsters more fantastic than any person invented in legend or religion.
What is the purpose of this course?
Its purpose is to show you how a historical science works and give you some practical knowledge about how the Earth as a system works.
What is the basic structure of the course?
€ There are 26 lectures€ There is a midterm and a final
€ There is a term paper of about 10 pages due the last day of class: Monday 12/8/97.
€ There is a mandatory self-guided trip to the American Museum of Natural History for which you will have to answer a series of questions about dinosaurs, based on the exhibits.
€ There are occasionally homework problems.
€ To use this course to fulfill the Science Requirement, Barnard students must take the lab. For all others it is optional.
The laboratory is offered for this course and is worth 1 point. Though optional to most it is highly recommended because of the hands on experience it gives you. Lab students generally do better than average on the exams.
What are the course books?
€ Lucas, S. G., 1997, Dinosaurs: The Textbook (2nd ed.). Wm. C. Brown Publishers, Dubuque, 292 p. (referred to as Lucas in readings)€ Dingus, L., Gaffney, E. S., Norell, M. A., and Sampson, S. D., 1995, The Halls of Dinosaurs: A guide to Saurischians and Ornithischians. American Museum of Natural History, New York, 100 p. (referred to as Dingus in readings)
What is the basis for the grades?
€ Go to Grading.
This course is available on-line - how do we use it there?
The home page for this course is:http://rainbow.ldeo.columbia.edu/courses/v1001/dinos.1997.html
All handouts, homework assignments, course notes, and much other useful information is available on the World Wide Web. While not a requirement for the course, the more you use the WWW the better off you will be not just in this course, but in general.
I will spend part of the next lecture going over how to use the web and gain access to this web site.
