Educator Guide: What Makes a Dinosaur?

BEASTLY BREAKOUT While some scientists question the features that define ancient reptiles, others are uprooting the dino family tree altogether.
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About this guide
The article “What makes a dinosaur?” describes how new fossil evidence could make defining a dinosaur and describing the dinosaur family tree more difficult than was previously believed. Students can focus on information and graphs reported in the article, follow connections to earlier articles about dinosaurs and pursue cross-curricular connections in earth and biological sciences and engineering. In a related activity, students can study and identify characteristics on a number of real fossils.
This Guide Includes:
Dino discoveries add up
Journey to the age of the dinosaurs
Land of the lost
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