More About This Resource...

• This activity is designed to enhance a visit to the Museum's Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries exhibit. The printable one-page PDF handout, which focuses on dinosaur movement, includes the following activities.

  • Using illustrations that compare a crocodile's hips to a dinosaur's, students answer a series of questions.
  • Students are asked to evaluate the way birds and lizards move after learning that scientists now consider birds to be a kind of dinosaur.
  • Fun challenges—Animal Push-Ups and Reptile Races—help students better understand how a hole in the hip socket differentiates dinosaurs from other reptiles.

• Completion Time

  Approximately 1 period

• Teacher Tip

  Supplement a study of paleontology with a classroom activity drawn from this student handout, which was created for the Museum's Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries exhibit.

  1. Ask students: How do you think dinosaurs moved? What animals, alive today, can we look to for an example?
  2. Give copies of the activity to students. Have students answer the questions and complete the activities, working individually or in pairs.
  3. In a short essay, challenge students to explain in their own words the importance of the hole that paleontologists have found in dinosaurs' hip sockets.

• Topic

  Paleontology

• Subtopic

  General

• Subtopic

  National Science Education Standards
  Grades K-4:
  Science as Inquiry CONTENT STANDARD A: 

  • abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry• understanding about scientific inquiry

  Life Science CONTENT STANDARD C: 

  • the characteristics of organisms

  History and Nature of Science CONTENT STANDARD G: 

  • science as a human endeavor

  Grades 5-8:
  Science as Inquiry CONTENT STANDARD A: 

  • abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry• understanding about scientific inquiry

  Life Science CONTENT STANDARD C: 

  • structure and function in living systems

  History and Nature of Science CONTENT STANDARD G: 

  • science as a human endeavor• nature of science

  Grades 9-12:
  Science as Inquiry CONTENT STANDARD A: 

  • abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry• understanding about scientific inquiry

  Life Science CONTENT STANDARD C: 

  • behavior of organisms

  History and Nature of Science CONTENT STANDARD G: 

  • science as a human endeavor• nature of scientific knowledge

• Learning Standard

  National Science Education Standards
  Grades K-4:
  Science as Inquiry CONTENT STANDARD A: 

  • abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry• understanding about scientific inquiry

  Life Science CONTENT STANDARD C: 

  • the characteristics of organisms

  History and Nature of Science CONTENT STANDARD G: 

  • science as a human endeavor

  Grades 5-8:
  Science as Inquiry CONTENT STANDARD A: 

  • abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry• understanding about scientific inquiry

  Life Science CONTENT STANDARD C: 

  • structure and function in living systems

  History and Nature of Science CONTENT STANDARD G: 

  • science as a human endeavor• nature of science

  Grades 9-12:
  Science as Inquiry CONTENT STANDARD A: 

  • abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry• understanding about scientific inquiry

  Life Science CONTENT STANDARD C: 

  • behavior of organisms

  History and Nature of Science CONTENT STANDARD G: 

  • science as a human endeavor• nature of scientific knowledge