Dinosaurs: The Textbook

by Spencer George Lucas

Takes students on a journey through various aspects of dinosaur biology, geology, and the history of their discovery. This book presents facts together with ideas, notions, and controversies. It... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0072826959
• ISBN13: 9780072826951
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 8.4" x 10.7"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Introduction to the study of Dinosaurs

This book is a basic introduction to the study of dinosaurs. It briefly covers the history of paleontology in general and of dinosaur paleontology specifically. The reader will learn what makes a dinosaur a dinosaur, and why other reptiles aren't. It covers the major divisions of dinosaurs with brief descriptions of all of the large subgroups. If you're looking for a book that will get you beyond general audience level without requiring years of other studies to understand, this will be a good choice.

Excellent for non-science majors

I teach a course about Dinosaur biology at a local community college and this textbook is exactly what we need for this type of course. This text allows me to teach science to students who think that science is boring or too hard. Although I have added a lot of scientific thinking on top of this text, the book itself does introduce students to thinking like a scientist by presenting both sides of an argument - for example what caused Dinosaurs to go extinct. The text allows me to teach both sides, all the facts behind each, and to allow the students to draw their own conclusions.

Dinosaurs the textbook

I have used two editions of this book as one of the texts for a general vertebrate paleontology course. The class, organismic biology majors, with some secondary science, PE., elementary education and geography majors, liked the clear writing, statement of objectives, and reviews of each chapter. Diagrams were also clear. It perhaps needs more background on plate tectonics, stratigraphy/sedimentation and extinction/bird origins.