*Editor's note: This is the second installation in a weekly series profiling professors' approaches to teaching and academics at Dartmouth.**##
As biology professor Kevin Peterson discussed Velociraptor hunting techniques and apocalyptic meteors, students in his Winter "Dinosaurs" class passed around fossils that included petrified eggs, foot-long teeth and preserved skulls. In his three classes, "Dinosaurs," "The Science of Life" and "Macroevolution," Peterson said he leads his students in conversational Socratic lectures to engage them in applying the scientific method to different aspects of biology.
"I like to tell a story and need time to flesh it out," Peterson said. "I try to have different players conflict and get the students to figure out what the next slide will be. People learn better when they're engaged and there's a unity of a direct flow of information."
Peterson tries to "lead students along" so they can experience firsthand how he arrives at the answers to the questions in his lectures, according to Jillian Dunne '13, who took Peterson's class on "The Science of Life."
Students say a major focus in Peterson's classes is the distinction between scientific and non-scientific theory, especially when applied to controversial subjects such as evolutionary biology, where many key concepts are still hotly debated.
"He approaches [this issue] really carefully," Claire Kim '13 said. "He stresses that there are other theories, and spends time teaching each one."
Peterson teaches students that they cannot apply the scientific method to non-scientific theories, such as intelligent design or creationism, as a way of invalidating them, Kim said.
Peterson also continually emphasizes the importance of skepticism, several of his students said. Peterson tells his students that science progresses by showing the problems with earlier theories, according to Dunne.
"[This approach] allows for us to realize that there other possible solutions and situations out there," Dunne said.
Peterson said he has been interested in paleontology and the origin and evolution of animals since he was four years old. After earning an undergraduate degree in biology from Carroll College and a doctorate in geology from the University of California, Los Angeles, Peterson said he heard of Dartmouth for the first time when he was beginning to search for a teaching position.
A "certain ambience" drew Peterson in as he arrived on campus for his first interview, he said.
After being told that department administrators were primarily focused on research at the University of Michigan, Peterson chose Dartmouth because "it was clear that good teaching was expected and rewarded," he said.
Peterson's current research focuses on using molecular paleobiology to study early animal evolution, he said.
Peterson directs undergraduate research assistants in gene amplification to determine from gene sequences where "different animals sit in the phylogenic tree of life," he said, referring to the tree showing how all organisms are related to each other.
"In the world of science, a lot of people disagree how the world was like before life existed," Dunne said.
In "The Science of Life," Peterson devoted one lecture to the idea of a universal common ancestor, describing the prehistoric world before DNA.
"Before there was DNA, only RNA existed," Dunne said. "RNA has the capability to posses genotypes and phenotypes, replicate itself and make proteins. It was interesting to see how that world is so different from our world today, and how it may have developed from that."
Peterson told students on the first day of the "Dinosaurs" class this Winter that the point of the class was for them to understand the scientific method. He said he could try to "teach about cows, but no one would take it," Emily Tomlinson '13 said.
In his lectures, Peterson used ancient creatures like Tyrannosaurus Rex and pterodactyls to illustrate the scientific fields of ecology, geology and evolutionary biology. His tests made students evaluate hypotheses, considering questions such as whether two dinosaurs interacted based on their footprints.
As a form of outreach, Peterson also travels to local day care centers and The Bernice A. Ray School to share a hands-on presentation featuring dinosaur fossils, he said.
"Dinosaurs are the first things that kids encounter that make their parents look like wimps," Peterson said seated in his office adorned with crayon drawings of dinosaurs by his children. "They're fascinated with something big and ferocious, but also extinct that idea fascinates kids."
