Lesson Plan
Other

Arizona Sonora Desert Museum: Make a Fossil Mold and Cast [Pdf]

For Teachers 3rd - 6th
For this activity, students will make a fake fossil cast using plaster of Paris. A second activity on comprehending the size of dinosaurs is included in this file.
Website
American Geosciences Institute

American Geological Institute: Evolution and the Fossil Record

For Students 9th - 10th
The American Geological Institute has done an excellent job of defining and explaining evolution in this online booklet. Darwin, fossils, natural selection, and change over time are some of the concepts that are covered. Make sure to see...
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: How Do We Know What Color Dinosaurs Were?

For Students 9th - 10th
The microraptor was a four-winged carnivorous dinosaur with iridescent black feathers. But if our information about this dinosaur comes from fossils, how can we be certain about its color? Len Bloch shows how making sense of the evidence...
Website
American Museum of Natural History

American Museum of Natural History: Paleont O Logy: The Big Dig

For Students Pre-K - 1st
This colorful and inviting resource houses tons of paleontology activities to explore. Play the Layers of Time puzzle game, create your own make-believe dig site by burying chicken bones in plaster of Paris, learn how to draw dinosaurs,...
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Building a Dinosaur From a Chicken

For Students 9th - 10th
Renowned paleontologist Jack Horner has spent his career trying to reconstruct a dinosaur. He's found fossils with extraordinarily well-preserved blood vessels and soft tissues, but never intact DNA. So, in a new approach, he's taking...
Handout
American Museum of Natural History

American Museum of Natural History: Gobi Expeditions O Logy Card

For Students 3rd - 8th
Flip this interactive card to start learning about Gobi Expeditions. Answer multiple-choice and fact-or-fiction questions and review some fast facts about this expedition where paleontologists and scientists gather to collect Cretaceous...
Lesson Plan
Indiana University

Ensi: The Great Fossil Find Lesson Plan

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Students hear a story as they "find" bones that you have put in an envelope for them. Their job is to begin assembling the bones as best they can. The students will invariably come up with different configurations--just like scientists...
Lesson Plan
Children's Museum

The Children's Museum of Indianapolis: Dinosphere

For Teachers K - 1st
Learners will learn how dinosaurs were classified, compare shapes and sizes, and explore how paleontologists make discoveries. They'll analyze how dinosaurs interacted back in the day, and make their own dinosaur drawings and a fossil cast.
Interactive
American Museum of Natural History

American Museum of Natural History: O Logy: Fighting Dinos: New Discoveries

For Students 3rd - 8th
A virtual investigation surmising how two fighting dinosaurs died in the Gobi Desert.
Website
Other

Travel Montana: Montana Kids: Maiasaur

For Students 3rd - 8th
The Maiasaur is a kind of hadrosaur, a dinosaur that lived in the Upper Cretaceous Period. Much of what is known about the Maiasaur came from the fossils found at Egg Mountain in Montana. Jack Horner, a well known paleontologist,...
Activity
American Museum of Natural History

American Museum of Natural History: O Logy: Stuff to Do: Buried Bones

For Students 3rd - 8th
A how-to science project with instructions to make a complete dinosaur bone dig site burying chicken bones in plaster of Paris. Click on the starred words to learn more about the topic.
Graphic
Curated OER

Science Kids: Science Images: Abrictosaurus

For Students 9th - 10th
This drawing shows the possible appearance of Abrictosaurus, a dinosaur from the early Jurassic Period (around 200 million years ago) that weighed around 45 kg (100 lb) and reached around 1.2 m (4 ft) in length. The fossil remains of...