During this time of uncom-fortable adolescence, talking about, thinking about, or being interested in dinosaurs is not cool. But something happens in high school. Students either develop enough self-confidence or gain enough wisdom to be able to look back on dinosaurs with renewed interest and excitement. Once again, dinosaurs become cool. When my students asked whether we could talk about dinosaurs, I thought they were riding out the last thrills from Jurassic Park, but they were engaged on a deeper level.
Dinosaurs are compelling to think about.
My students had been learning geology for half the year and knew quite a bit about the geologic timescale, what information geologists can glean from the fossil record, evolution, and the geologic and climatologic changes the earth has undergone. My teaching had generally been didactic. I wanted my students to master, and I often told them exactly what these were. In our study of dinosaurs, I did not have the level of understanding necessary to teach in this directed manner. As a result, I asked my students to construct for themselves their own understanding of life in the Mesozoic.