ARTICLE/VIDEO: From Chickens to a Chickensaurus!

[Ryan Goble]

While this content is very "secondary" in nature clips of the video below and some images from the article might be great conversation starters with upper elementary students. With the TV show Terra Nova coming out you are likely to get some questions about this science. This WIRED article is about Jack Horner at the University of Wyoming. He has debunked the Jurassic Park idea (that we can find dino DNA) but has another idea. An excerpt...

All of which means that people are more cautious about calling him [Jack Horner] crazy these days, even when he tells them what he plans to do next: Jack Horner wants to make a dinosaur. Not from scratch—don’t be ridiculous. He says he’s going to do it by reverse-evolving a chicken. “It’s crazy,” Horner says. “But it’s also possible.”

Over the past several decades, paleontologists—including Horner—have found ample evidence to prove that modern birds are the descendants of dinosaurs, everything from the way they lay eggs in nests to the details of their bone anatomy. In fact, there are so many similarities that most scientists now agree that birds actually are dinosaurs, most closely related to two-legged meat-eating theropods like Tyrannosaurus rex and velociraptor.

But “closely related” means something different to evolutionary biologists than it does to, say, the people who write incest laws. It’s all relative: Human beings are almost indistinguishable, genetically speaking, from chimpanzees, but at that scale we’re also pretty hard to tell apart from, say, bats.

You can read the FULL ARTICLE HERE.

Also you can use clips of his great TED video (there is a great bit in the middle re: 6th Graders and Dinosaurs).

[Phyllis Ain]

I really enjoyed this clip for a number of reasons unrelated to the content.  Jack Horner is a self-professed paleontologist who hates reading but loves to "find things."  As someone who struggled with reading (and continues to do so), he is another great example of ways kids can succeed by pursing their questions and interests.  Am hoping to use this video and the article with some sixth grade boys.  Thanks

[Ryan Goble]

Very cool - yes, it is a great example of why we need to worry about learning styles/ MI/ etc. - that said, because he works with academics I think he was being modest and works with his limitations as it sounds like (in the Wired article) he does a lot of reading but it is secondary to "doing." So glad you liked this and found it useful!