Rock Cycle - Past Life (2A)
Post Lab 

   
OBJECTIVES:
  • Exploring where dinosaur fossils are found.
  • Discovering that dinosaurs lived all over the globe.
VOCABULARY:
  • dinosaur
  • plate tectonics
MATERIALS:
  • dinosaur globe
  • world placemat

Students examine where dinosaurs lived using the dinosaur globe.

BACKGROUND:

Dinosaurs roamed the Earth from 230 to 65 million years ago, during the Mesozoic Era. The Mesozoic is divided into three geological periods: the Triassic Period, the Jurassic Period, and the Cretaceous Period. Different dinosaurs lived in each period.

All dinosaurs likely had restricted geographic ranges; no dinosaur lived all over the earth, as people do today. The dinosaurs lived in many areas, and some of the dinosaurs never saw each other. You might want to use the dinosaur inflatable globe that shows where these dinosaurs once roamed. One fact to keep in mind is that when the dinosaurs were alive, the configuration of the continents was different. Plate Tectonics in motion! North America and Eurasia were connected, as were South America and Africa. The continents have slowly moved to their present positions.

PROCEDURE:
  1. Bring out the Dinosaur Globe. Have the class stand in a circle. Ask students to tell you what a continent is (a large area of land and rock that is not covered by water). Ask them if they know how many continents there are on Earth today (7) and have them identify Africa, North America, South America, Australia, Antarctica, Europe, and Asia. Explain that the continents have been present on Earth for hundreds of millions of years, although their locations and combinations have changed.
      
  2. Throw the Dinosaur Globe around the circle. Each time it is caught, have the child who catches it read aloud the name, location and time period of the dinosaur closest to their index finger.
      
  3. Using large Carnegie dinosaur models, remind the class that: 1) during the Mesozoic the continents were arranged differently than they are today, and 2) that different types of dinosaurs lived in different parts of the world during each Mesozoic time period. Have students locate where each dinosaur model can be found. Use the key below to locate each dinosaur.
Dinosaur

Apatosaurus 
Velociraptor
 
Stegosaurus 
Tyrannosaurus
 
Brachiosaurus 
Parasaurolophus
 
Triceratops
 
Euoplocephalus
 
Pachycephalosaurus
 
Maiasaura 
Location
 
western North America
Central Asia
western North America
western North America
N. America/ East Africa
western North America
western North America
western North America
western North America
western North America

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