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所在平台: Coursera |
课程主页: https://www.coursera.org/learn/dinosaurs
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课程名称：恐龙：进化、灭绝与古生物学 课程概述：恐龙在生命史上独一无二，早在两亿多年前开始进化，遍布各大洲，并且至今依然存在。此课程提供了对恐龙世界的概述，从最早的小型恐龙到巨大恐龙及霸王龙，再到现代鸟类，探讨了恐龙古生物学中一些最引人入胜的问题：恐龙是如何变得如此庞大的？它们在世时是什么样的？为什么它们会突然灭绝？ 课程大纲： 1. **什么是恐龙？** 本节课将探讨恐龙的定义、其在地球上生存数亿年的原因及研究方法。授课作者Dr. Mark Norell与Dr. Diego Pol通过基础文章介绍恐龙的演化背景以及古生物学家的发现与研究过程。 2. **恐龙家谱** Dr. Diego Pol介绍如何通过系统发育树图来描绘恐龙的演化变化，解释各大恐龙类群的特征和历史演变，并分享了发现最大恐龙的故事。学生将在作业中分析化石特征并构建基于证据的假设。 3. **恐龙的古生物学** 此周的文章讨论了灭绝恐龙的生活状态，包括外观、身体维护及感官使用的方式。通过研究现存动物推测古代动物的生存状况。学生将通过观察足迹数据进行行为推测。 4. **繁殖、行为与运动** 本周探讨恐龙的移动与繁殖，四位专家分享各自研究，包括如何推测恐龙的孵化方式及幼兽的抚养。学生将利用真实的生长环图像来推导恐龙的年龄与生长曲线。 5. **恐龙人口统计** Dr. Greg Erikson讨论恐龙的生物群体，包括生命长度及繁殖年龄等问题。通过骨骼生长模式分析恐龙的年龄，并探讨如何通过人口数据深入理解恐龙的生活状态。 6. **恐龙灭绝** 在课程的最后一周，D. Pol将解析导致恐龙灭绝的重大事件，比较多种理论，探讨为何有些动物物种幸存而其他大部分灭绝，并以北达科他州的Tanis遗址为案例，探讨我们如何了解K-T灭绝事件。 本课程将帮助学习者全面理解恐龙的进化历程及其灭绝的复杂性。
Name:What are Dinosaurs?
Description:We start with a few basic questions: What makes a dinosaur a dinosaur? How have dinosaurs inhabited our planet for hundreds of millions of years? How do we study them? Co-authors Dr. Mark Norell and Dr. Diego Pol kick off the course with three seminal essays. First, Pol provides a brief introduction to dinosaurs and their evolutionary context, from the Triassic period to today. Then Norell explains how he and other paleontologists discover fossil sites, excavate the specimens, and study them back at the American Museum of Natural History. A series of videos show scientists at work in the field and in the lab and provide a brief history of the Museum’s famous T. rex.
Name:The Dinosaur Family Tree
Description:Dr. Diego Pol’s three essays explain how scientists map evolutionary changes through diagrams called phylogenetic trees in order to figure out how species are related to one another and when different traits emerged. He starts with an overview of the dinosaur family tree, highlighting the major groups and the features that distinguish them. Then he explains the basic evolutionary changes that occurred within each group over millions of years. And finally, he tells the exciting story of how he and colleagues discovered one of the largest dinosaurs that ever lived. Videos show how the titanosaur was discovered, prepared, and finally mounted at the American Museum of Natural History. This week's assignment gives learners the opportunity to examine the characteristics of a fossil and construct an evidence-based hypothesis for its phylogeny.
Name:Paleobiology of Dinosaurs
Description:The three essays this week, written by Dr. Norell with guest author Dr. James Napoli, explain what extinct dinosaurs were like when they were alive: what they looked like, how they maintained their bodies, and how they used their senses. Norell and Napoli explain how these discoveries were made through modern paleontological techniques such as studying living analogues to make inferences about how extinct animals lived. Guest author Dr. Amy Balanoff presents a case study of Citipati osmolskae to illustrate how she and other paleontologists study the fossil skulls of ancient dinosaurs to hypothesize about dinosaur behavior. In this week’s video Norell and Balanoff discuss commonalities between living birds and their extinct ancestors. In this week’s assignment learners will observe trackways, collect data on foot length and stride length, and then make inferences about behavior from data analysis.
Name:Reproduction, Behavior, and Locomotion
Description:This week, four guest scientists share their research into how dinosaurs moved and reproduced. First, Dr. Matteo Fabbri explains how paleontologists draw on evidence from living birds and reptiles to infer how dinosaurs hatched and cared for their young. Then Dr. Jasmina Weimann takes us on her personal journey of discovery about the color of dinosaur eggshells. In the next essay, Dr. John Hutchinson explains how he examines fossil bones and trackways, and then uses computer models to hypothesize how dinosaurs walked and ran. And in the final essay, Dr. Emily Rayfield explains how she uses computational methods that apply physical principles to test and deduce the feeding behavior of non-avian dinosaurs. Videos help learners visualize what dinosaurs looked like and how they grew. In this week’s assignment, learners will use images of authentic growth rings to age dinosaurs and construct growth curves.
Name:Dinosaur Demographics
Description:The guest author this week is Dr. Greg Erikson, a paleontologist who studies population biology, the field that addresses questions such as how long dinosaurs lived and when they reached reproductive age. The first essay picks up on the assignment from the previous week, explaining how scientists analyze patterns in bone growth to infer the age of a dinosaur when it died. The second essay explores how scientists use growth curves to explore how dinosaurs got so big, or so small. The third essay explains how we can obtain a clearer picture of how these animals lived by examining demographic data (i.e., how many dinosaurs lived together, how many were sexually mature, at what age they died). A video features Dr. Aki Watanabe discussing the lifespan and growth pattern of the famous T. rex, from fluffy chick to tyrant king.
Name:Dinosaur Extinction
Description:In this final week of the course, learners will pivot from investigating how non-avian dinosaurs lived to exploring how they went extinct. In the first essay, Pol compares theories about what caused the great dinosaur extinction 66 million years ago. In the second essay, he digs deeper into that extinction event to address questions such as: Why did some animal species survive when so many others did not? In the final essay of the course, Dr. Pol answers the question: How do we know what we know about the K-T extinction, using the Tanis site in North Dakota as a case study to answer that question and more.
Dinosaurs are unique in the history of life. They evolved more than 200 million years ago, inhabited every continent, and are still around today. This course provides an overview of the world of dinosaurs, from the earliest small dinosaurs to titanosaurs and T. rex to modern birds, and investigates some of the most fascinating questions in dinosaur paleontology: How did dinosaurs get so big? What were they like when they were alive? Why did they suddenly go extinct? Drawing on the Museum’s long-
