A G.A.T.E.WAYS JOURNEY for gifted Year 3 and 4 children with a passion for palaeontology and dinosaurs ‘JAWS, CLAWS AND TYRANNOSAURS’ G.A.T.E.WAYS is an independent organization offering challenging and enriching activities and experiences to develop and extend highly able children. This JOURNEY for both girls and boys will run over four sessions. It’s over 22 years since the movie Jurassic Park first arrived on the scene thanks to the imaginative minds of Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg. Curiously more has happened to dinosaurs in the real world than on film since then. Fossil discoveries mainly in China, have transformed our understanding of dinosaurs. New species of dinosaurs are being discovered at a rate of one a week. The connection between birds and dinosaurs is now firmly established and birds are now regarded as avian dinosaurs. A whole family of dinosaurs, the tyrannosaurs, have been found with an extensive covering of feathers. T-rex was likely covered in quills and perhaps looked more like a cassowary than a komodo dragon. The tyrannosaur family has expanded in number, size, distribution and ancestry. This program looks at the latest dinosaur discoveries and the myths that have sometimes sprung up around them. Session One Can we build a more ‘up to date’ dinosaur? Many changes have occurred in our understanding of dinosaurs in recent years. The most exciting discoveries have involved the unmistakable impression of feathers. Dinosaurs had all kinds of feathers. They not only had down feathers for warmth. Microraptor was a dinosaur with four wings and obvious flight feathers. Pterosaurs were not the only ancient family of reptiles that could fly. Fifty years ago dinosaurs were all thought to be cold blooded; now it would appear they are more bird like than we could imagine. In this session we will examine some dinosaur feathers and work out what each different type of feather was for. Looking at dinosaur books published before 2000 and the Jurassic Park series of movies, we can see that dinosaurs appeared naked with only their scales as a covering. Now the evidence points to a whole new look. What else did the film get right or wrong? During the session we will design a dinosaur from scratch and add feathers. We will need to take into account scientific accuracy. Session Two Taking a close up look at T-rex and raptors In this session we will examine the most recent findings on tyrannosaurs. Once upon a time Tyrannosaurus rex was a one of a kind. Now we know T rex was neither the first nor the biggest tyrannosaur. There was a big family of tyrannosaurs and T rex was the last of the line of tyrannosaurs stretching back over 100 million years. Jurassic World may have invented Indomitus rex but in real life, fact is often stranger than fiction. We now have Pinocchio rex, Raptorex, Alioramus and Juratyrant. We’ll attempt to draw T rex to scale and try to determine what it was capable of doing. How did T rex see the world? Was it a fluffy monster? We will look at the evidence for the way T rex hunted and grappled with its prey. Was T rex a predator or a scavenger? What would have happened in a meeting between T rex and Triceratops. Australia had some dinosaurs related to T rex, the allosaurs. We’ll make a working model of a retractable raptor claw and try to work out what its function was. We’ll also make a plaster cast of a T rex tooth and a raptor claw. and we’ll identify the four characteristics that make a tyrannosaur. Finally we will try to imagine how T rex would have managed in a fight with Indomitus rex the fictional dinosaur from Jurassic World. Session Three What is in a name? In this session we’ll investigate the language of dinosaurs. What is palaeontology? What makes a carnivore or an omnivore or an herbivore? We’ll earn a little Greek and Latin to understand what the various names mean before compiling a table of dinosaur names. Following that, we’ll do a crash course in plate tectonics and put together the pieces of a wonderful jigsaw where Australia was once a part of Gondwanaland. How do we know Australia was once attached to Antarctica? What sort of dinosaurs did Australia have 100 million years ago? We’ll take a look at some of Australia’s polar dinosaurs, so called because southern Australia was just inside the Antarctic Circle 100 million years ago. How did they cope with the cold? Finally we’ll look at evidence of dinosaur burrows found recently on the Victorian coast. Session Four Whichever way you look at it, dinosaurs leave an impression In our final session, we will view some of the most recent illustrations of dinosaurs and compare them with earlier illustrations and with other animals which existed at the same time. We’ll investigate a range of fossils to determine if they are authentic or replicas. How can we tell if the fossils are part of a skeleton or a skin impression? Why is it that the Chinese fossil dinosaurs are better preserved than the American dinosaur fossils? We’ll recreate the opening scene in Jurassic World and make a model of a dinosaur tyrannosaur or raptor claw from wire which we mount on a model of an egg. This symbolically captures the beginning of a new life for dinosaurs. What the students need to bring Week one: Optional: Any model dinosaurs that you may have ( or discussion) Week three: one complete toilet roll for ‘geological time’ exercise Week four: Optional: A raptor or T rex model if you have one Assessment and reporting Students will be assessed on their involvement in the program. Each student will have a brief report summarising the student’s contribution to discussions, involvement with activities and participation in creating artefacts. About the presenter Tim Byrne worked as an Education Officer at Museum Victoria and presented many fossil/dinosaur programs. He has been fortunate to attend many fossil field trips and has even organised a few field trips himself. He has closely followed the developing idea of birds as a kind of living dinosaur. While enjoying the Jurassic franchise, he also enjoys separating the wheat from the chaff. He recently attended the Palaeontology Society lectures to uncover the latest research on dinosaurs. .