When Dinosaurs Die Summary

It is obvious that the movie My Girl illustrates several aspects of the cognitive and emotional development of children’s understanding of death. Although Vada seems to have a fairly clear understanding of the inevitability and unpredictability of death, she has some difficulty with its all-inclusiveness in that, although she is quite preoccupied with her own death, with her constant visits to the doctor reporting various fatal diseases, she does not seem to be concerned about the possible death of those close to her. This is consistent with the finding that “most children understand their own personal mortality before they understand that all people die” (p. 17, Corr & Corr, 1996). This is so despite her extensive experience with death while living in a funeral parlour.

In chapter twelve there is a study done by Maria Nagy in the nineteen thirties which suggests three major stages in the development of death related concepts in childhood. Maria Nagy examined almost four hundred children between the ages of three and ten living in Budapest shortly before the Second World War. Nagy conducted a number of tests between different age groups in her sample; the results suggested three distinct but unassailable stages in children’s concepts of death. I found this to be quite fascinating, especially comparing the stages to what I can recollect of my own mindset at those periods. Nagy’s first stage encompasses children under the age of five; these children have no concept of the definitive nature of death and instead view it as a continuation of life elsewhere

In “On Natural Death,” Thomas appeals to the readers by contemplating the subject of death with an academic approach that includes facts, data, and information. Thomas successfully transforms death from an awkward, emotional subject to a more comfortable intellectual one. This engages the readers by placing contemplation of death and dying within the confines of a more manageable and rational context. His gradual exhumation of death eases the audience into pondering the subject in the absence of emotional stress. The essay transitions from the death of an elm tree to that of a mouse. This is followed by Thomas giving a significant amount of attention to a scientific explanation of death, and then finally the description of the near death experience of a human. This use of an academic appeal moves the audience to a comfort zone with the subject of death and circumvents the common response of avoidance. The reader is simultaneously desensitized to the gravity of subject matter and given permission to consider death and dying without the normal societal negative stigma associated with the subject.

The Disney Way of Death explains the unfortunate/sad reaction to the evident loss of a loved one (friends and family). The reactions associated were common characteristics that Americans experience when they encountered death- Invisibility, silence, dispassion, institutionalization and taboo. (Laderman, 2000)

Death is a topic that unites all of humanity. While it can be uncomfortable to think about, confronting death in unavoidable. “Dying” addresses that discomfort and universal unwillingness to consider the inevitability of death. Pinsky’s use of imagery, symbolism, and tone create a poetic experience that is like death, something every reader can relate to. In “Dying,” Pinsky describes how people are oblivious and almost uncaring when it comes to the thought of death. Pinsky is trying to convince the reader that they shouldn’t ignore the concept of death because life is shorter than it seems.

Everybody processes the ideas of death and dying differently. On pp.42-44, Christopher discusses his rabbit’s death, his mother’s death, and the idea of dying.

Life has many lessons in store for us. Often times, one of the most terrifying and traumatic lessons a child can learn really has nothing to do with life--but rather, death. Unfortunately, it is a lesson that we all must encounter at some point. No matter the age or circumstance, it is hard to understand how something so dark and mystical can impact our lives so much. It is even harder to cope with the loss of a loved one and to come to terms with knowledge that each day we live, we become one closer to dying.

Dinosaurs come in many different colors and sizes. The lifespan of a dinosaur is 75 to 300 years. Their daily life is hunting, mating, using the bathroom, and migrating. The defense mechanisms helped them repair their injuries 150 mya. The bone structures are the skull, jaws, neck bones, vertebrae, thigh, pelvis, tail, and rib bone. Dinosaur’s average speed is about 27 mph. Dinosaurs find their food by hunting, which is each other and some eat plants. They reproduce by hatching newborns from eggs. Some communicate by their horns or flickering the tip of their tails. Baryonyx stomach contents were found to contain fish scales, is an example of predator-prey relationship. Some animals that are related to dinosaurs are lizards, because of their skin texture.

Death is going to happen to all living creature regardless of anything else. Death is a natural process and it out of the control of humanity. The final and fourth factor, causality, is where casual relationships are often misunderstood because children do not realize the depth of things caused by natural factors such as death (Shortle et al., 1993). For example, the death of a pet, could lead the child feeling guilty and remorseful when they actually had nothing to do with the cause of death (Kaufman & Kaufman, 2006).

In the book, “I Miss You: A First Look at Death (First Look at Books)”, it targets the age group 4 to 8. The book introduces to the children that death is a natural process in life, and explains what happens to a person when they die. The book also brings up grief and a sense of loss, explaining that these are all normal feelings for them to have when a loved one dies. I think that the book does an exceptional job of illustrating the concepts told on each page in a way that the children can

There were multiple strong points made throughout this chapter. For example, the section on Children’s Concept of Death mentioned 5 major components of the death concept that children typically experience. The 5 major components are inevitability, universality, irreversibility, nonfunctionality, and causality, which are all approached by children at different rates. Another

Nader and Salloum (2011) made clear that, at different ages, children differ in their understanding of the universality, inevitability, unpredictability, irreversibility, and causality of death. They believed, despite the increasing understanding with age of the physical aspects of death, a child may simultaneously hold more than one idea about the characteristics of death. However, factors that complete the determining nature of childhood grieving across different age groups may be a difficult task for a number of reasons including their environment in means of the support they have available, the child’s nature in terms of their personality, genetics, and gender, coping skills and previous experiences, the developmental age, grieving style, whether or not therapy was received, and the relationship to the deceased (Nader & Salloum, 2011). Crenshaw (2005) found that according to our current understanding of childhood traumatic grief and normal grief, thoughts and images of a traumatic nature are so terrifying, horrific, and anxiety provoking that they cause the child to avoid and shut out these thoughts and images that would be comforting reminders of the person who died. The distressing and intrusive images, reminders, and thoughts of the traumatic circumstances of the death, along with the physiological hyper-arousal associated with such re-experiencing, prevent the child from proceeding in a healthy way with the grieving process (Crenshaw, 2005). McClatchy, Vonk, and

It displays ways that a child can say goodbye to a loved one and explains that there are other kinds of beliefs concerning death. Even if the family is not religious or spiritual, the child will have an understanding and acceptance that people grieve and mourn differently across cultures. The book is very straightforward and does not whitewash anything about death. There was not too much or too little, but the appropriate amount of information for young readers six to ten years of age. The Browns wisely leave room for a child’s own response, acknowledging that with a death of a loved one, even if it is a parent or pet, that “there is no right or wrong way to feel” (Brown, 1998). They also submits some explanation to other adults, for instance, after offering different beliefs on what happens after death, they advise young readers to “ask family or your religious leader” (1998). Overall, this book has a positive message: to grieve and go on

Hook. The extinction of dinosaurs is a mystery in itself that has stumped scientists all over the world for decades, and they still look for new answers every day. Scientists know some background information, but cannot connect the dots to see the bigger picture. There was little interest in the topic until Luis and Walter Alvarez proposed a groundbreaking hypothesis, which today we call the “Alvarez Hypothesis”. This new idea of the Alvarez’s was exciting, and therefore got the media talking about it, which in turn started the search of how the dinosaurs went extinct. Another popular theory of how dinosaurs went extinct is the Volcanism Theory. Scientists have recently found new evidence supporting both sides of this debate. Although many dinosaur extinction theories exist, only the Alvarez Hypothesis is correct.

The biggest mystery surrounding the dinosaur is how did they die? For over 130 million years dinosaurs ruled the earth. Then 65 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period, they died out.