Behold the Mighty Dinosaur

Dinosaurs present the ultimate puzzle in forensic science, but we have learned a great deal about them, especially in the last fifty years. Our view of dinosaurs has changed radically, and the evolution and biology of dinosaurs has become a popular topic in college curriculums. This lecture series will explain how this changing view of dinosaurs developed, the evolutionary and ecological relationships among dinosaurs, what it might have been like to be present in the Mesozoic Era during the time of the dinosaurs, and the question of what ultimately brought about the total extinction of all of the non-bird dinosaurs and the end of the Cretaceous Period. Although extinct, dinosaurs have never been more a focus of science than they are today.

Course Syllabus

• Lecture 1 What Is (or Was) a Dinosaur?
• Lecture 2 Digging Up Dinos
• Lecture 3 Dinosaurs Discovered
• Lecture 4 The Bone Wars
• Lecture 5 The Museum That Dinosaurs Built
• Lecture 6 Dinosaurs Enter Pop Culture
• Lecture 7 Dinosaur Origins
• Lecture 8 In the Days of Dinosaurs
• Lecture 9 Dinosaur Diversity
• Lecture 10 Dinosaurs Become Dynamic
• Lecture 11 Dinosaurs Become Airborne
• Lecture 12 Dinosaurs as Living Animals
• Lecture 13 T. REX Deconstructed and Reconstructed
• Lecture 14 The Cretaceous Extinction Event