Becoming Human is an interactive documentary experience that tells the story of human origins. Multimedia, research and scholarship are presented to promote greater understanding of the course of human evolution. This site includes classroom materials, subject-designed exercises, games and activities to help make connections between the concepts that are presented and student learning. PDF versions of the resources may be downloaded from the site.

This fun Web site is part of OLogy, where kids can collect virtual trading cards and create projects with them. Here, they learn about paleontology with a hands-on activity. The activity opens with an explanation covering how fossilized bones are usually very delicate and buried deeply in rock fossils. Students are then given step-by-step directions for working with a friend to create two make-believe dig sites by burying bones in plaster of Paris. The activity ends with three discussion questions: What was surprising about excavating the bones? What strategies did you find worked well for removing the plaster? How would you have worked differently if you had no idea what was buried inside?

Examine geological evidence found in fossils, rock deposits, and ancient mountains that supports the theory of continental drift in this interactive activity adapted from the Exploratorium.

This OLogy activity offers kids a fun way to show off their dinosaur knowledge. The activity begins by telling kids to pick a topic and title for their Mesozoic Museum, and provides a book list to help them research their selection. It then provides a list of materials and directions for setting up an exhibit that includes explanatory caption cards. Kids are urged to invite friends and family to the Mesozoic Museum, soliciting feedback and testing how well their exhibit communicated knowledge. As inspiration, the activity also includes a pictorial look at the construction of a dinosaur exhibit at the AMNH.

This lab activity is a paper fossil dig where students discover skeletal characteristics of humans, primates and hominids and are asked to make a short oral presentation to the class.

This site helps students answer questions about dinosaurs: What makes a dinosaur a dinosaur? Where did they live? What caused their mass extinction? Students can participate in a virtual dinosaur discovery, follow milestones in dinosaur evolution, and see behind-the-scenes slide-shows of the lab environment where vertebrate specimens are prepared for exhibits and research.

This Web site, created to complement the Museum's Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries exhibit, offers a virtual visit to the Museum, complete with text, photos, video clips, audio interviews, and more. The site takes an in-depth look at modern paleontology and today's advanced technology.

This Web site is a firsthand report from an expedition to Patagonia in which the first dinosaur embryos with fossilized skin were found. It tells the story of the find, which was made by scientists who were actually looking for early birds and their ancestors. Discovery explains the original mission of the expedition and the remarkable find of a nesting site that contained thousands of dinosaur eggs. What Does a Paleontologist See? challenges students to find dinosaur remains in two rock specimens. (Answers can be checked by rolling the mouse over the images.) The Place profiles Patagonia with an excerpt from an audio interview with one of the expedition leaders. The Team features photographs and bios of the 14 scientists who made the discovery, as well as links to related Web sites. Dig Deeper answers a number of questions about the expedition, from what the most important expedition equipment was to the next steps in the research. Listen answers the question of What kind of dinosaur laid the eggs at the nesting site? with an English and Spanish audio recording. Publications provides a select list of books and articles by the expedition's two lead scientists, and includes abstracts of and excerpts from their work.

This OLogy activity shows kids how paleo-artists are able to transform dinosaur bones into dynamic drawings. After walking them through the five-step process outlined below, the activity challenges kids to create their own drawings from dinosaur skeletons|Step 1: Start with the bones. Step 2: Give those bones a body. Step 3: Shadow time!Step 4: Scaly skin and maybe feathers. Step 5: There's no place like home.

An introduction to theoretical studies of systems of many interacting components, the individual dynamics of which may be simple, but the collective dynamics of which are often nonlinear and analytically intractable. Topics vary from year to year. Format includes both pedagogical lectures and round-table reviews of current literature. Subjects of interest include: problems in natural science (e.g., geology, ecology, and biology) where quantitative theory is still in development; problems in physics, such as turbulence, that demonstrate powerful concepts such as scaling and universality; and modern computational methods for the simulation and study of such problems. Discussions in context of contemporary experimental or observational data.

This course will look at the various mechanisms of evolution, how these mechanisms work, and how change is measured. The course will begin by reviewing the evolutionary concepts of selection and speciation. The student will then learn to measure evolutionary change and look at the history of life according to the fossil record and a discussion of the broad range of life forms as they are currently classified. Upon completion of this course, students will be able to: define evolution and describe different types of selection; provide examples of microevolutionary forces and describe how they impact the genetics of populations; describe the Hardy-Weinberg principle and solve problems related to Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium; provide examples of games used in evolutionary game theory; connect biological phenomena to game theory; develop simple phylogenies from molecular or morphological data; identify important evolutionary events that have occurred throughout geologic time; characterize and provide examples of major plant and animal phyla. (Biology 312)

This Web article is part of OLogy, where kids can collect virtual trading cards and create projects with them. Here they meet Deena Soris, who interviews the fossil of a Protoceratops. The more-than-20 questions answered by this dinosaur fossil include: You look fabulous. How old are you?How do scientists guess an extinct dinosaur's speed?Is it a thrill to have a frill?So what happened?One day you're happily munching away on thick, tough plants, the next you're history?How did you go from being a "Gobi sandwich" to becoming a fossil?Your bones were underground for 80 million years. How did the paleontologists find you?Once you got to the Museum, what happened? Are there any secrets you'd like to share with the folks at home?

This fun Web site is part of OLogy, where kids can collect virtual trading cards and create projects with them. Here, they learn about the Fighting Dinos fossil. The site opens with a vivid account of the dinosaurs' fight. "Explore the Fighting Dinos Through a Paleontologist's Eyes" gives students an up-close look at the fossil, with notes about the clues it's given scientists. "How Did They Die, Anyway?" presents details about the three theories that have been developed about how the fighting pair was buried alive. "Bone Up Your Fossils" challenges students to match up eight dinosaur fossil photos and descriptions.

This Web site, created to complement an American Museum of Natural History exhibition, reports on one of the most famous fossil finds in the world (the fighting dinosaurs of Mongolia) and other ancient animal fossils discovered in the Gobi Desert.

This OLogy activity serves as a kid-friendly how-to manual about searching for fossils. In Not Just Any Rock Will Do, kids learn that fossils "hide out" in sedimentary rock and see examples of shale and sandstone. Do's and Don'ts for Fossil Hunters gives kids practical tips and a list of fossil-hunting supplies. In Fossils You May Find, there are photos of common invertebrate, vertebrate, and plant fossils to guide kids. Paleontology Clubs and Web Sites lists resources to help kids determine where to hunt for fossils. In Keeping a Field Journal, kids are shown an sample journal entry that points out the types of information they should record.

The American Museum of Natural History is home to the world's largest collection of vertebrate fossils, totaling nearly one million specimens. This Web site offers visitors a virtual visit to the Museum's famed Fossil Halls. It features seven sections along with a brief introduction, a Teacher's Guide, and information about the Museum's Division of Paleontology.

Fossils are indicators of past life. This collection of still images produced for Teachers' Domain features examples of fossils from plants, animals, and insects.

In this interactive activity from the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, Indiana, examine a piece of the ancient Borden Sea in what is now central Indiana. Explore the types of fossils found there and the clues they offer to ancient life on Earth.

This activity is a field investigation where students gather data on fossiliferous limestone, develop an experimental question, and develop a mental model of local geologic history.