THE JURASSIC PARK MOVIES
Teachers often show the Jurassic Park movies in the classroom. If you
plan on doing so, you may want to prepare your students, in advance, with
a lesson that will educate them concerning the factual and fictional aspects
of each movie they will watch.
This assignment could also be offered to students for extra credit whereby
they could watch the movies on their own rather than in the classroom
setting.
Have the students read:
Is It Possible?
An analysis of what you saw, what is and what could be.
Make sure students have a question sheet that will target
key issues and concepts from this site.
Here are some sample essay questions that would be suitable.
You could assign all of them or give students a choice of how many essays
they should answer.
1- Scientists continue to debate whether dinosaurs were cold-blooded or
warm-blooded animals. Present convincing arguments for both sides of this
issue.
2- Why do you think the Velociraptor in Jurassic Park I does not
have a feathered crest while the dinosaur in Jurassic Park III does?
In other words, why would the producers add this new physical characteristic
to the same dinosaur?
3- A friend of yours has just told you that he/she wants to study to become
a laboratory technician and one day work with DNA to create real Jurassic
Park dinosaurs. What would you tell your friend concerning the likelihood
of being able to do so?
4- There are references and visual analogies in the Jurassic Park movies
to the link between dinosaurs and birds. Provide evidence to support the
theory that dinosaurs are not extinct but rather existing today as birds.
5- Assume the possibility exists to create a living dinosaur from original
DNA. What problems do you foresee in maintaining this new population of
dinosaurs and what dangers might exist to humans because of this extraordinary
experiment in colonization?
6- Pick one dinosaur from Jurassic Park that also appears in the research
article you were told to read. State how this dinosaur was "misrepresented"
in the Jurassic Park movie.
7- In your opinion, why do you think scientists became excited to learn
about the herding and nesting habits of dinosaurs?
8- (Requires additional student research) John H. Ostrom, Kenneth Carpenter,
John R. (Jack) Horner and Robert Bakker are well-known paleontologists
that have contributed a great deal to the understanding of the physical
characteristics and behavior of dinosaurs.
Pick one of these scientists and research more information about him.
Include the scientist's: background information, important fossil discoveries,
book(s) or scientific article(s) written along with publishing date(s),
and any revolutionary concepts about dinosaurs presented by this scientist.
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