Конспект урока на тему «Take the cards with the chart»

TASK 2

Take the cards with the chart,

listen to a museum guide & fill in the missing information:

 

Habitat	Food	Size	Weight	Special Features
Compsog-nathus	All over the ……………. Except in Antarctica	meat	………………. Cm tall	……………… kilos	Very fast …………….
Pteradont	………., Asia And North America	…………………….	………………. bodies	Very light	Very long beak
Veloci- raptor	…………..	Small animals	Medium size	………………. kilos	Strong fast runners, ……………… claws
Tyranno-saurus	……………… America and East Asia	other big dinosaurs	……………… metres tall	Very ……………….	Strong legs, Long…………

MINI-REPORTS

Слайды 4-6

As the Mesozoic era begins, the dinosaurs began. 

The earliest dinosaurs and mammals date back to the late Triassic period, about 225 million years ago. Most of the first Triassic dinosaurs were small and quick meat-eaters that walked on their hind legs. By the end of the Triassic period (about 200 million years ago), larger prosauropods (20-foot-long plant-eating dinosaurs) were beginning to appear. Pterosaurs (flying reptiles) also made their first appearance here as well as frogs, turtles, and crocodiles. During the Late Triassic period, many small mammals also arose.

The Jurassic period began about 200 million years ago and lasted about 55 million years. In Jurassic period began the Age of the Ruling Reptiles. During this period, vegetation was greener and more lush. Many new types of dinosaurs, mammals, and reptiles emerged during the Jurassic, including the plated dinosaurs and the sauropods — heavy, long-necked dinosaurs that walked on four legs. There were also large theropods, or meat-eating dinosaurs, roaming the Earth. By Late Jurassic, huge dinosaurs such as Stegosaurus, Ceratosaurus, Brachiosaurus, and Allosaurus walked the lands. The first birds (and bird-like dinosaurs) also appeared during the Jurassic period.

The earliest known birds also appeared.

The Cretaceous period began about 145 million years ago and ended 65 million years ago with the extinction of the dinosaurs. The Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic era may have seen more dinosaurs then ever before. Dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes walked the land, including duckbills, armored, horned, and dome-headed dinosaurs The horned Cretaceous dinosaurs appeared, like the Triceratops and Centrosaurus. The armored Ankylosaurus, duckbilled Parasaurolophus, and large carnivore Tyrannosaurus were a few of the quickly evolving dinosaurs. There were new forms of giant meat-eaters, as well as a deadly new breed of hunter, the «raptor» dinosaur, known for its sharp teeth and curved claw on each hand and foot. Birds became increasingly numerous. Flowering plants and modern insects appeared. By the end of the Cretaceous period, all large and small ruling reptiles, except the crocodile went extinct.

Слайды 12-13

At the end of the Cretaceous Period, 65 million years ago, all the dinosaurs died out. Why this happened is one of the most frequently asked — and intriguing — questions in paleontology.

There have been many different ideas put forward to explain why the dinosaurs died out. The two most likely are that their habitat slowly changed, and that a meteor impact triggered their extinction.

Gradualist theory

The gradualist hypothesis points to declines in the numbers and diversity of different groups of land and marine animals. It suggests that the extinction of these groups was due to climate change. The climate at the end of the Cretaceous was cooling — and a fall in sea level reduced dinosaur and shallow water marine animal habitats.

Impact theory

The impact hypothesis gets a lot of press coverage because it is spectacular. There is good geophysical evidence for the occurrence of an asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous. A band of clay rich in the mineral iridium was deposited at the end of the Cretaceous and has been found at many places in the world. This mineral is rare on Earth but more common in meteorites. It has been suggested that the impact would have triggered a nuclear winter scenario that would have caused the death of the dinosaurs as well as the pterosaurs, several families of birds and mammals and also marine animals such as the plesiosaurs and ammonites.

Geological theory

At the end of the Cretaceous there were a lot of volcanic eruptions, at least in some parts of the world. The Deccan Traps, huge flood basalts, were deposited at this time, and the dust and gases erupted at the same time would have had caused environmental changes over a wide area.

Vegetation Theory

The poisonous plants appeared. Plant–eating dinosaurs died out and tha was the reason why meat-eating raptors and others disappeared.

Will we ever know?

Unfortunately, while these hypotheses are plausible and they can both explain how many animals went extinct, neither can explain why certain animals died out while others survived. Why did the dinosaurs, which were so successful, die out, while other animals such as frogs, which we know are environmentally sensitive, survive?