- From www.coursera.org
Dino 101: Dinosaur Paleobiology
Course
en
English
Subtitles available
12 h
This content is rated 4.934210526315789 out of 5
- Self-paced
- Free Access
- Fee-based Certificate
- 12 Sequences
- Introductive Level
- Subtitles in French, Italian, German, Spanish
Course details
Syllabus
- Week 1 - Appearance and Anatomy
This lesson covers the diversity in dinosaur appearances, and will be able to identify major features of the major groups of dinosaurs. - Week 2 - Death and Fossilization
This module describes how fossils form, how we interpret the taphonomy of skeletons and bonebeds, and looks at the possible biases taphonomic events may create in the fossil record. - Week 3 - Eating
This module looks at the variety of food types, feeding habits, and feeding adaptations amongst the major groups of dinosaurs. - Week 4 - Moving Around
This module helps students understand the general modes and styles of locomotion in the major dinosaur groups. It also describes general methods of evaluating hypotheses on locomotion. - Week 5 - Birth, Growth and Reproduction
This module provides a generalized life history of a dinosaur, from birth through adulthood, including reproduction. The student will be able to describe major techniques of evaluating growth stages and rates in dinosaurs. - Week 6 - Attack and Defense
Examines the behaviours and structures that may have served for attack or defence through the lifetime of a dinosaur. - Week 7 - What is a Species?
This module will teach the different ways of defining what a species is. Students will be able to compare the strengths and weaknesses of different species concepts for different situations. - Week 8 - Evolution
This module will describe the basic theories of speciation, and discusses how how these different methods of speciation may have occurred, including both hypothetical and empirical examples. - Week 9 - Stratigraphy and Geologic Time
This method provides basic stratigraphic concepts and the scale of earth history. Students will understand the evolution of dinosaurs through time, including which groups evolved when and where. - Week 10 - Paleogeography and Plate Tectonics
This module presents the basic concepts in plate tectonics and the evolution of the earth’s surface. - Week 11 - Dinosaur Origins
This module will look at the evolution of dinosaurs from non-dinosaurian archosaurs. - Week 12 - Dinosaur Extinction
The module will examine the end-Cretaceous extinction event, and provide examples of vertebrate groups that both persisted and died out during the event.
Prerequisite
None.
Instructors
Philip John Currie, PhD
Professor and Canada Research Chair, Dinosaur Paleobiology
Department of Biological Sciences
Editor
UAlberta is considered among the world’s leading public research- and teaching-intensive universities. As one of Canada’s top universities, we’re known for excellence across the humanities, sciences, creative arts, business, engineering and health sciences.
Platform
Coursera is a digital company offering massive open online course founded by computer teachers Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller Stanford University, located in Mountain View, California.
Coursera works with top universities and organizations to make some of their courses available online, and offers courses in many subjects, including: physics, engineering, humanities, medicine, biology, social sciences, mathematics, business, computer science, digital marketing, data science, and other subjects.
Complete this resource to write a review