Paleontology and Stratigraphy

James Klaus
,
j.klaus@miami.edu

University of Miami
a
Two Year College
.

Summary

Upper-level undergraduate paleontology course that also covers a significant amount of stratigraphy

Course URL:
Course Size:

15-30

Course Context:

This is an upper-division required paleontology course with prerequisites of introductory geology, historical geology, and mineralogy. This course has two 90 minutes lectures and 1 3 hour lab and a couple field trips.

Course Goals:

Students should be able to do independent investigations of evolutionary processes utilizing common paleontological data types.
Students should be able to do independent investigations of past environments based on integrated geological, paleontological and geochemical data.


How course activities and course structure help students achieve these goals:

Laboratory exercises are all based on real fossils and student collected, and student analyzed data. These exercises are modeled after real examples and principles presented in the lecture. To give students exposure to a range of organisms, each exercise utilizes fossils from a different phyla.

Skills Goals

Quantitative abilities
Student writing


How course activities and course structure help students achieve these goals:

Students are give model studies of real paleontological studies, then apply a similar approach in a different setting. Students work on quantitative aspects and writing aspects every week.

Assessment

Students are assessed in:
(1) weekly lab write-ups
(2) two mid-term exams which test general natural history knowledge and the ability to apply knowledge
(3) Final laboratory specimen-based exam

Syllabus:

Klaus Syllabus 2009 (Microsoft Word 44kB Aug6 09)