Jack D. Farmer

Arizona State University

GLG 460 Introduction to Paleontology is a required course for students majoring in the geological sciences and an elective course for biology students. Graduate credit is offered upon enrolling in GLG 590 Paleontology. (Requires additional research project assignments for graduate credit).

Basic biology or historical geology

This project is offered the second week of the course and provides a basic foundation for students to know how to look at fossils to extract the morphological information they contain. Understanding sources of morphological variation in populations is considered foundational for all subsequent topics in the course.

Understand the sources of morphological (and by extension, behavioral) variation among the individuals of a population and the role that such variation plays in adaptation and evolution.

Observation and critical evaluation to select between competing explanations.

Creating concept sketches, detailed visual observation and comparison. Presenting ideas orally within a group.

To prepare for this in-class exercise, students read relevant background material in their textbook and then hear a lecture about sources of variation in populations. Students then form small groups (5 individuals per group) and spend time examining specimens sampled from natural populations of three species. They make sketches and discuss the different types of morphological variation seen, then assign different components of the observed varation to the following sources: Genetic, ontogentic, sexual and ecophenotypic.

Groups report out to the larger group, then turn in their written responses, which are in turn evaluated by the instructor.