From Fossils to Phylogenies Presentation

From Fossils to Phylogenies includes four activities, each listed separately in the SMILE curriculum. The unifying theme of the activities is dinosaurs.
1) Bringing Back the Dinosaurs - A Case Study Activity - A case study on the ethics of cloning dinosaurs. This gives the students the ability to discuss and debate the ethics of scientific endeavors.
2) Mass Spectrometry Activity - Using analytical chemistry methods to analyze protein fragments from the fossil of a T-rex.
3) BLAST Activity - Using BLAST to determine which extant animal the T-rex is most closely related to.
4) Phylogenetic Tree Activity - Using MAB Phylogeny Analysis to generate a phylogenetic tree placing extinct animals, like the T-rex and Mastadon, among extant animals.