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Welp, I messed up. My punishment: teaching an Associate level class. here’s the light reading I have to do to develop the course. snarge.

Hi. This fall I will be teaching a paleontology class for 5th and 6th graders. We will meet once a week for 55 minutes. My plan is to teach up front for about ten minutes and then for the remainder of the class to be hands on activities. I have come up with some ideas, but would love some feedback on them and any other ideas that you all might have. The first session will be an introduction to paleontology, possibly including fieldwork methods, fossil prep, ichnology and trace fossils, adaptations, cladistics, plate tectonics, etc, while the second session will be more focused on the actual organisms that we find in the fossil record and how they changed through time. The second session will build a fossil kit as the session progresses to take home at the end. Here are the topics I have come up with so far: 1. What makes a dinosaur a dinosaur, addressing the dinosaur-bird connection 2. Cladistics- using either coins or candy or both 3. Fossils and sedimentary layers, layer cake stratigraphy (not sure about using food, depends on allergies) or could use colored sand and plastic cups with animal shaped beads to be the fossils 4. Dinosaurs and speed activity, have students learn to calculate their own speed over a given distance and apply that to dinosaur foot impressions 5. Plate tectonics and fossils, have the kids reconstruct the earth 220 million years ago based on fossils found on the different puzzle pieces that the land masses have been broken up into 6. Dinosaur teeth, learning the difference between meat-eaters and plant-eaters and discuss the size of dino teeth 7. Chocolate chip cookie excavation exercise, to teach how difficult fossils can be to extract from matrix and to prepare for study 8. Activity using a pant tray covered in dirt, rocks, and some sand. Sprinkle glitter (glitter= dead animal bones) over the dirt. Then gentle rain water out of a paper cup over your pretend hillside and watch the dirt absorb the water. There is a greater chance the glitter bones will be make it into the fossil record vs. the desert. Put plastic wrap over your hillside to simulate the desert. Sprinkle on your glitter and rain over it...glitter washes away into the arroyo, bones are separated, lost, broken, etc.... --> trying to develop into a way of showing how fossils end up getting in to the fossil record more easily in a forest environment vs. a desert environment. Still only just the beginning of an idea.

I got to spend the day today talking about evolution and fossils with 9 freshman biology classes. It was a lot of fun. Kids these days are smart and ask some well thought out questions.

Hey everyone, within the next couple of months I am going to start teaching a paleontology class to middle school students, it will run until June. I've been thinking about how I'm going to structure the class. I don't want to make it too complicated but also want to make sure it's interesting. I was thinking about having each month be a different topic, maybe go through the time periods from the oldest fossils to the youngest but I'm afraid that will be too complicated. I was wondering if any of you have ideas of how I could structure the class. Thanks in advance for your help!

Greetings from North Texas. My name is Yoni coming in from Justin, TX. I've very recently decided on exploring the passion of fossil hunting. Thus far, I have seen a number of small successes in my collecting. To date, I've only been panning local creek beds and simply walking though potential beds. My collection is small, but ever growing. I was wondering if there was anyone living in the area (roughly 1 - 2 hours of Denton Co. - Justin, TX) that would be interested in taking on an 'apprentice' or just a general friend to discuss, explore and teach some of the techniques needed for proper hunting/ prospecting. I am still studying, but reading versus application is obviously very different. I've always found hands on learning to be more advantageous to my growth As you would imagine, I'm VERY weary of trying to excavate anything more than an Ammonite or like, as I do not want to comprise any site or finds. Should you be in the area and willing to get together, please message me or respond to this post. Perhaps we could set up some time to meet and talk. Should you be willing or needing, I have no problem even just observing and assisting you in anyway you may need. Also, I would like to send out a general 'thank you' to all those I've met here on the forum and for the virtual guidance to date. It is truly appreciated. My best to you and yours, Yoni