A captivating look at the life of a modern-day fossil hunter who makes the find of a lifetime. Wendy has an eye for the unusual and is skilled at finding things that others don’t see. On a middle school field trip, she spots one of those unusual things — it’s fossilized coral 100 million years old! Wendy’s thrilled! And soon, she gets hooked on hunting fossils. She decides to turn her passion into her career and becomes known as the “fossil whisperer” around the world. But it’s close to home where she makes her most amazing find: Wendiceratops! Make no bones about it, a dinosaur species named after you is way cool! Kids will be wondering: what might be buried where I live?
This book presents a comprehensive overview of the science of the history of life. Paleobiologists bring many analytical tools to bear in interpreting the fossil record and the book introduces the latest techniques, from multivariate investigations of biogeography and biostratigraphy to engineering analysis of dinosaur skulls, and from homeobox genes to cladistics. All the well-known fossil groups are included, including microfossils and invertebrates, but an important feature is the thorough coverage of plants, vertebrates and trace fossils together with discussion of the origins of both life and the metazoans. All key related subjects are introduced, such as systematics, ecology, evolution and development, stratigraphy and their roles in understanding where life came from and how it evolved and diversified. Unique features of the book are the numerous case studies from current research that lead students to the primary literature, analytical and mathematical explanations and tools, together with associated problem sets and practical schedules for instructors and students. New to this edition The text and figures have been updated throughout to reflect current opinion on all aspects New case studies illustrate the chapters, drawn from a broad distribution internationally Chapters on Macroevolution, Form and Function, Mass extinctions, Origin of Life, and Origin of Metazoans have been entirely rewritten to reflect substantial advances in these topics There is a new focus on careers in paleobiology
"What was the world like millions of years ago? Did early humans walk on all fours? Did giant sloths lie in trees? Did dinosaurs have feathers? Even as a young girl, Mary Leakey was fascinated by questions like these! In Fossil Huntress: Mary Leakey, Paleontologist, elementary aged children meet Mary as a girl growing up in France and visiting the site of archeological wonders, such as Pech Merle, Fond de Gaume, and La Mouthe. As an adult, Mary leaps at the chance to travel to Africa, where she spends much of her life working in the field in Tanzania, making discoveries that change the face of paleontology forever. True grit, passion, and high standards for scientific rigor made Mary a pioneer in the field of paleontology! Fossil Huntress is part of a set of four books in the Picture Book Biography series that introduces pioneers of science to young children."--
“A tour de force…highlights the odd reptiles that roamed all corners of the earth millions of years ago.”—Sydney Morning Herald From the outback of Australia to the Gobi Desert of Mongolia and the savanna of Madagascar, the award-winning science writer and dinosaur enthusiast John Pickrell embarks on a world tour of new finds, meeting the fossil hunters who work at the frontier of discovery. He reveals the dwarf dinosaurs unearthed by an eccentric Transylvanian baron; an aquatic, crocodile-snouted carnivore bigger than T. rex that once lurked in North African waterways; a Chinese dinosaur with wings like a bat; and a Patagonian sauropod so enormous it weighed more than two commercial jet airliners. Other surprising discoveries hail from Alaska, Siberia, Canada, Burma, and South Africa. Why did dinosaurs grow so huge? How did they spread across the world? Did they all have feathers? What do sauropods have in common with 1950s vacuum cleaners? The stuff of adventure movies and scientific revolutions, Weird Dinosaurs examines the latest breakthroughs and new technologies that are radically transforming our understanding of the distant past. “This history of the discovery of some of the most outlandish creatures that ever lived, and the excitement of paleontological research, will be sure to both entertain and instruct.”—Spencer Lucas, author of Dinosaurs: The Textbook, Sixth Edition “Fascinating.... Readers learn of beautiful opalised dinosaur bones from Australia and a crested dinosaur found approximately 13,000 feet up Antarctica's Mt. Kirkpatrick, demonstrating that dinosaurs were widely distributed across the globe.”—Publishers Weekly
This book provides teachers with 50 dynamic activities to teach science, through music, food, games, literature, community, environment, and everyday objects. The authors share tried and tested ideas from their collective 75 years of teaching experiences. For the busy teacher with little time to plan lessons, resources are provided that include guided worksheets for activities, pre, post and during ideas to accompany activities, and vocabulary and literature connections. With this book in hand, teachers can create opportunities for students to see science in application, and to think logically as they ask questions, test ideas, and solve problems.
If she succeeds, the life of her dreams is within reach. If she fails, she loses everything. Sixteen-year-old Mella's future among the aristocracy of her medieval city rests on a single test to produce a strong and beautiful animal familiar. However, when she fails to produce any creature at all, she loses everything in one crushing blow. But then she gets a second chance. Working with teenagers from the lowliest of places, Mella begins to learn that status isn’t everything. With their help, she trains an impressive avian in the shadows and passes her off as her familiar. She’s constantly terrified someone might realize the creature isn’t what she seems. If they’re caught, the avian’s life will be forfeit and Mella will lose her new friends and the last hope of a future she has left. If you like cutthroat competitions, medieval settings, and found family, you’ll love Whisper of Weapons! Grab your copy of Whisper of Weapons today!
A Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade Book of 2019 An Orbis Picture Recommended Title “An outstanding case study in how science is actually done: funny, nuanced, and perceptive.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Join early scientists as they piece together one of humanity’s greatest puzzles—the fossilized bones of the first dinosaur! Dinosaurs existed. That’s a fact we accept today. But not so long ago, the concept that these giant creatures could have roamed Earth millions of years before humans was unfathomable. People thought what we know as dinosaur bones were the bones of giant humans. Of large elephants. Of angels, even. So, how did we get from angel wings to the T-Rex? The First Dinosaur tells the story of the idea of dinosaurs, and the chain of fossil discoveries and advances in science that led to that idea. Be prepared to meet eccentric men and overlooked women who uncovered the pieces to a puzzle so much bigger than themselves, a puzzle far stranger and more spectacular than they could have ever imagined.
The story of Walter Mantell's 1848 journey down the east coast of the South Island in New Zealand, to set aside reserves for Ngai Tahu within a large land-block purchased by the government, is countered with a modern woman's very different story of violence on a South Island farm. This evocative and finely observed novel reveals different ways of seeing the land as well as the deals made in politics and in love.
Roland Thaxter Bird, universally and affectionately known to friends and associates as R. T., achieved a kind of Horatio Alger success in the scientific world of dinosaur studies. Forced to drop out of school at a young age by ill health, he was a cowboy who traveled from job to job by motorcycle until he met Barnum Brown, Curator of Vertebrae Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and a leader in the study of dinosaurs. Beginning in 1934, Bird spent many years as an employee of the museum and as Brown's right-hand man in the field. His chart of the Howe Quarry in Wyoming, a massive sauropod boneyard, is one of the most complex paleontological charts ever produced and a work of art in its own right. His crowning achievement was the discovery, collection, and interpretation of gigantic Cretaceous dinosaur trackways along the Paluxy River near Glen Rose and at Bandera, Texas. A trackway from Glen Rose is on exhibit at the American Museum and at the Texas Memorial Museum in Austin. His interpretation of these trackways demonstrated that a large carnosaur had pursued and attacked a sauropod, that sauropods migrated in herds, and that, contrary to then-current belief, sauropods were able to support their own weight out of deep water. These behavioral interpretations anticipated later dinosaur studies by at least two decades. From his first meeting with Barnum Brown to his discoveries at Glen Rose and Bandera, this very human account tells the story of Bird's remarkable work on dinosaurs. In a vibrantly descriptive style, Bird recorded both the intensity and excitement of field work and the careful and painstaking detail of laboratory reconstruction. His memoir presents a vivid picture of camp life with Brown and the inner workings of the famous American Museum of Natural History, and it offers a new and humanizing account of Brown himself, one of the giants of his field. Bird's memoir has been supplemented with a clear and concise introduction to the field of dinosaur study and with generous illustrations which delineate the various types of dinosaurs.
This guide includes lessons that allow you to focus on the foundational skills that are so important to emergent readers as they connect sounds to letters, decode words, and develop a bank of sight words and academic vocabulary. In this guide, you will find tools to provide students with explicit and systematic phonemic awareness and phonics instruction. Each lesson links to an engaging studentbook that introduces phonics skills and provides a strong text-to-photo match in order to reinforce comprehension and build content-area knowledge.
