Course Syllabus

EEES 1004S – Dinosaurs and the History of Life

Professor: Paul E. Olsen                                                                  Office: Virtual, via zoom

Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences     Cell Phone (please text or voicemail): 845-729-2434

Office Hours: Wednesdays, 5-6pm & by appt.                  Email: polsen@ldeo.columbia.edu   

TA: Clara Chang                                                                                 Office: Virtual, via zoom

Office Hours: MW, 10-11am & by appt.                                Email: cchang@ldeo.columbia.edu 

Course Description: Dinosaurs explores how science works and provide practical knowledge about the history of life and how we have come to understand it. We learn how to analyze the evolutionary relationships of organisms and examine how dinosaurs came to be exemplars of a very successful group of organisms dominant on land for 140 million years. We will delve deeply into how direct descendants of small carnivorous theropod dinosaurs evolved into birds, still more diverse than mammals, dominating the air. The Mesozoic, a “hot-house world”, with no ice caps and was the kind of world we are hurtling towards because of our input of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and we will look at how their time is a natural experiment for our future. The non-avian dinosaur met their end in a remarkable cataclysm discovered by detective work that we will delve deeply into as a paradigm of the scientific method  Finally, they are fun and spectacular - monsters more fantastic than any person has invented in legend or religion - and they are still with us!  

Prerequisites:  There are no specific prerequisites for this course, although we assume exposure to basic high school math and science, and in most cases, Frontiers of Science.

Dinosaurs Course Objectives: The objectives of Dinosaurs are twofold: first to provide an attractive introduction to the Earth Sciences and Science in general; and second, to afford you who already have an interest in dinosaurs and paleontology a venue for advancing that interest.

Course Structure: The course is divided into 12 lectures with the last lecture period devoted to the final exam. The first two lectures develop tools for understanding science, deep-time and evolutionary relationships. The following two lectures look at the discovery of dinosaurs and their evolutionary prelude. Six lectures follow in which we examine the world of the dinosaurs focusing on their ecological context and evolutionary relationships, detailing all of the iconic beasts. Finally there are two lectures looking at the demise of the non-bird dinosaurs and the aftermath, including our own origins and the effects we are having on the world. The last lecture is devoted to a review of the course, and the last period is the final exam. Each lecture will supplemented with readings from the textbook as well as the primary scientific literature. Homework will develop critical thinking skills and specific skills for using the tools we outline in lecture and there will be self-guided virtual assignments at the American Museum of Natural History, The Smithsonian, and other museums. Lecture slides will be posted the day before each lecture so that students can take notes on them. Lecture information has priority over all other course content, including the text.

Required Textbook;  The assigned text for this course is “Dinosaurs: A Concise Natural History” by Fastovsky and Weishampel (2016): ISBN: 9781316501153

Assessment and Grades: Your course grade will be based on performance on the midterm (take home), final (in class) and homework, as follows:

Midterm     33%

Final     34%

Homework    33%