Dinosaurs and Their Relatives: A Way of Teaching Paleontology to Non-Science Major Undergraduates

Like many, I teach a course on dinosaurs to non-science major undergraduates, hoping to inspire an interest in science and some of its ways of knowing. While at the undergraduate level most courses aim to instill core skills and knowledge, for the non-majors I treat this as a secondary goal to simply exciting them by the material. I want them to leave the course thinking science is cool! As a vehicle for teaching non-majors a dinosaur course has two advantages. First, the students often bring within them an interest in dinosaurs, so that first barrier to falling in love with the subject has already been breached. Secondly, most science requires some skill with mathematics, physics, or chemistry, skills the non-major does not have, and really doesn't want to have (in case you hadn't noticed!). But for vertebrate paleontology, the primary skill needed is a feeling for anatomy, and the students, by virtue of being vertebrates, bring some of that feeling with them (even if they don't bring the terminology along too). I also feel it critically important to teach labs with the course, so that the students can gain a feel for the raw material from which our science flows: the fossils! In effect, my students are apprenticed to my graduate student teaching assistants, learning how to read the anatomy from the fossils at their disposal. Finally, if I were to offer any general advice on the teaching of paleontology to non-majors, it is teach what you love most, show your excitement, mix it up (I teach how we tell geological time, plate tectonics, Darwin's evolution, etc.,), make it accessible, and make it fun (for example, I finish my course with an evening showing of Jurassic Park with commentary)!