Student slideshow: English | Spanish

Teacher printout: English & Spanish

What Can Young People Do to Protect the Environment?

In this reading, students learn simple steps they can take to help protect the environment.

The American Museum of Natural History in New York has a great Dinosaur Curriculum Collection (Grades 5–8; lesson plans included). Check these out:

• Walk Like a Dinosaur!: Dinosaurs were reptiles…with a twist. Find out what makes a dinosaur a dinosaur by doing the dinosaur walk.

• Solve a Sedimentary Layers Puzzle: What happened when? Test your fossil-hunting skills by working out this dino timeline.

Find out why scientists think birds are modern-day dinosaurs: It may be hard to believe, but there are dinosaurs around us every day. You might even have had one for dinner last night.

• Are birds really dinosaurs? Yes. (2:52)

• How do we know that birds are modern-day dinosaurs? Discover the clues scientists have used to figure it out. (5:11)

• What would feathered dinosaurs have looked like? An artist’s view. (1:34)

Scientists and artists work together to imagine how dinosaurs looked and lived. Here, you’ll watch a video, read an article, and then create a dinosaur of your own.

• Meet a paleoartist and find out about his work. (2:02)
• Create a dinosaur of your own! Print out this “newly discovered skeleton” and imagine how it looked in life. Add any feathers, horns, lumps, bumps, or spikes it might have had, give it a name, and think about how it lived.

If you're curious, scientists named this dinosaur Parasaurolophus!