Facilitated Program

K - 3 Early Childhood

We Dig Dinosaurs Facilitated Program

Overview: Become a palaeontologist for the day! Brush, chip and sort your way through a variety of hands-on activities, just like a real fossil finder. Investigate how fossils reveal the secrets from life as it was millions of years ago.

Duration: One hour facilitated experience with a Museum Education Officer. Please allow approximately 45 minutes additional time for self-guided gallery exploration using Student Activity sheets and Adult Helper Guide.

What your class will experience: Uncover a large fossil buried under sand. Use tools to excavate a fossil from rock. Reconstruct a dinosaur skeleton. Identify real fossils. Learn types of fossils. Self-guided gallery exploration.

Excursion Booking and Enquiries: For enquiries and bookings please contact:

Western Australian Museum – Perth Education Phone: 9427 2792 Fax: 9427 2883 Email: [email protected]

Teacher Resource

Links 3 Curriculum Galleries At the Museum 4 Facilitated Program Self-guided Experience Related Museum Resources At School 5 Classroom Activities

Adult Helper Guide 7 Photocopy We Dig Dinosaurs Adult Helper Guide (for every adult)

Student Activity Sheets 13 Photocopy We Dig Dinosaurs Student Activity sheets (for every student)

Curriculum Life and Living Science Students understand their own biology and that of other living things and recognise the interdependence of life. Key Messages 1. By investigating fossils, we can Identify, compare and contrast various aspects of a dinosaur’s habitat, diet and behaviour. 2. The physical features and behaviours of dinosaurs enabled them to survive in their environment.

Galleries

Western Australia: Land and People Hackett Hall, Level 1

Diamonds to Dinosaurs Jubilee Wing, Level 2

Discovery Centre Hackett Hall, Ground Floor

Facilitated Program One hour The facilitated component of We Dig Dinosaurs takes place in one of the Museum’s learning spaces. It is a hands-on, interactive experience where the class rotates through five activity stations based on the students becoming ’junior palaeontologists’. Please have your students split into five groups for this experience. Each group will require one adult supervisor to assist them with the activities.

Self-guided Experience Approximately 45 minutes The self-guided component of We Dig Dinosaurs takes place in the Museum’s galleries. Using the questions contained within the Adult Helper Guide, group leaders will be able to assist students to complete their Student Activity sheets and explore our collection of fossils and dinosaur-related objects. Please allow for time to explore the galleries before or after your facilitated program. Maps are available at the Front Desk to assist you in locating these galleries, or please ask a staff member for directions.

Photocopy Please bring with you on the day of your excursion: We Dig Dinosaurs Adult Helper Guide (for every adult) We Dig Dinosaurs Student Activity sheets (for every student)

Related Museum Resources Planning Your Excursion Excursion Management Plan Excursion Essentials Available online www.museum.wa.gov.au/education

Publications Fun stuff for students: • 3D T-rex mask • Dinosaur mobiles Available for purchase, please enquire at time of booking.

Classroom Activities

From this list, please select some activities that are suitable for the age and ability of your students.

Focus on a fossil: Read Gogo Fish! The Story of the Western Australian Fossil Emblem (Long, John; illus: Ruse, Jill) and see the real Gogo Fish fossils when you visit. Footprints: Find out the size of a well-known dinosaur footprint and draw an outline on a large sheet of paper. How many students can fit an outline of their own foot inside it? Size and scale: Use measuring tapes, rulers and other measuring devices such as paper strips to compare the heights of different dinosaurs to everyday objects and familiar buildings. Remember that not all dinosaurs were massive and many could easily fit through the classroom door! Classification: Discuss herbivores and carnivores, examining pictures of each to determine common distinguishing features such as teeth, claws and limb size/ shape. Create a chart in the classroom to show dinosaurs in these categories and add other animals (including humans) to the chart. Exploring through the arts: Re-write familiar songs to a dinosaur theme and add some creative hand or body actions, e.g. ‘Five Little Ducks’ becomes ‘Five Little Dinosaurs’. My pet dinosaur. Make dinosaur eggs out of balloons and papier-maché. Paint white and then cut the top open. Make a sock puppet dinosaur to pop out the top. Preparing for the Museum Excursion: Before visiting the Museum, create a ‘mind map’ of the facts that the class know about dinosaurs.

Find out more: Use a variety of books and online resources to research dinosaurs seen at the Museum – Muttaburrasaurus, Carnotaurus, Gorgosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex. Dinosaurs around the world: When researching dinosaurs and fossils from around the world, place coloured pins with the dinosaurs names on a world map. Where are most of the fossils found? Which dinosaurs have been found in Australia? Describe-a-saur: Palaeontologists had to use clues from fossils to guess what dinosaurs looked like. What would it be like to draw something that you did not know a lot about. In pairs, give each student a picture of a dinosaur. One has to describe the dinosaur to the other, who has to draw it without looking at the picture. Encourage students to describe features such as teeth, limbs, protection plates, neck length, etc.

Western Australian Museum Teacher Resource: We Dig Dinosaurs www.museum.wa.gov.au © 2009 5 Dinosaur bodies – structure and function: Make dinosaur bones out of modelling clay or white pipe cleaners. Discuss how the shape of these bones has a specific purpose; eg teeth are sharp or flat for grinding, limb bones are long for striding or reaching, ribs are curved to protect organs and the skull is thick to protect the brain. Colour or camouflage?: Collect a variety of dinosaur colouring-in pages and give one to each class member. Instruct half the class to use camouflaging colours and the other half to use ‘mate-attracting’ colours. Hide all pictures in a small garden area and then give students 30 seconds to find as many as they can. Discuss findings and the benefits of different skin colours, explaining that scientists have used other clues to guess what colour dinosaurs were. Investigate other reptiles and their skin colour. Design-a-saur: Draw plans for a ‘new’ dinosaur, including special features to: • capture or collect food • eat food • hide from danger • move from place to place • call or attract a mate • defend itself in a fight. Use modelling clay to make the dinosaur in 3D, adding features with toothpicks, pipe cleaners, feathers, small shells and coloured markers. Survival and extinction theories: Make a list on the board (using words or simple pictures) in two categories: • things that helped dinosaurs survive (such as food, water, new eggs, sunshine, plants etc). • things that may have contributed to extinction (such as volcanoes, predators, cooler climate, meteorites etc). Each class member can draw a picture of one of the things on the board. Stick coloured card on the back so all pictures look the same. Use these to play a ‘survival of the fittest’ game where class members stand in a circle, each member turning a card over, sitting down if they turn an ‘extinction’ card over.

K - 3 Early Childhood

We Dig Dinosaurs Adult Helper Guide

Photocopy We Dig Dinosaurs Adult Helper Guide (for every adult).

How To Use This Guide Use the questions contained within the Adult Helper Guide to encourage discussion while you explore our collection of fossils and dinosaur-related objects with your group of students. This guide will identify which Student Activity Sheet/s should be completed in each gallery. Please allow approximately 45 minutes additional time for self-guided gallery exploration using Student Activity Sheets and Adult Helper Guide.

Galleries You will visit three galleries. The following icons are used within this document and the Student Activity Sheets to identify which gallery you should be in.

Western Australia: Land and People Hackett Hall, Level 1

Diamonds to Dinosaurs Jubilee Wing, Level 2

Discovery Centre Hackett Hall, Ground Floor

Western Australia: Land and People Hackett Hall, Level 1 Creep up on Carnotaurus

Creep up on Carnotaurus Is this dinosaur real? How do you know? Mark the following:

• Its sharp, meat-eating teeth. • Its bull-like horns. • Its sharp claws, which it used to Carnotaurus bones were found in Argentina and it was one of the catch its prey. most complete dinosaur skeletons ever found. That’s how the museum could make such a good model. The Museum used information about the Carnotaurus skeleton to create the shape of its body, and looked at some fossilised skin to design all the lumps and bumps on the outside.

Draw a close-up of the Fossils change colour when they turn to rock, so how do you Carnotaurus’ skin in the magnifying glass. think we decided what colour the Carnotaurus would be? © 2009: Approved for classroom use only. Looking at plants that may have been used for camouflage. Comparing to modern-day reptiles.

Dinosaurs were reptiles… can you see any other reptiles around? Small lizard and turtle underneath the Carnotaurus model. Large python on display.

Ask one of the Museum staff if they know when Carnotaurus is due to ROAR!

Diamonds to Dinosaurs Jubilee Wing, Level 2 A Dinosaur Down Under!

A Dinosaur from Down Under!

Find the Muttaburrasaurus. Look at Muttaburrasaurus’ flat teeth – what did it eat? Look carefully at its skeleton and draw it inside this body. Plants. Muttaburrasaurus had strong jaws and flat teeth for eating tough vegetation. What is the special name for plant eater? Herbivore Draw some Muttaburrasaurus footprints. Muttaburrasaurus langdoni What other body parts helped it eat its food? Long arms and neck to reach tall branches. Muttaburrasaurus bones were found near a Queensland town called Muttaburra. Colour Queensland on this map Show with your arms how a Muttaburrasaurus might reach the of Australia.

© 2009: Approved for classroom use only. tallest branches. Can you see the lump on its’ head? Many scientists believe that Muttaburrasaurus’ bulging skull was for making loud calls. Can you make a sound that a Muttaburrasaurus might have made?

Diamonds to Dinosaurs Jubilee Wing, Level 2 ‘T-riffic’ T-rex

‘T-riffic’ T-rex Find the skull of Tyrannosaurus rex.

Draw some sharp teeth in the mouth of T-rex. Look at the T-rex’s teeth – what do you think it ate? Why? What word can we use for Meat-eaters? T-rex Carnivore. T-rex feasted on many types of dinosaurs with their sharp, banana-shaped teeth. Scientists believe that T-rex would grow new teeth if it lost any, just like a crocodile.

Circle the meal that T-rex might have eaten. Find the thick hadrosaur thigh bone around the corner. Hadrosaurs were a duck-billed group of dinosaurs. It is likely T-rex would have eaten hadrosaurs like Parasaurolophus or Corythosaurus.

A meat eater is called a Ask students to point to their thigh bone. ______

© 2009: Approved for classroom use only. T-rex had binocular vision – see how its eyes are facing forward? How do you think that helped it to survive? To judge depth and distance – they could locate prey to eat and easily spot any threats. What other animals have forward facing eyes? Predators like hawks, owls, cats, lions, people. Animals such as monkeys that need to judge distances to move though trees. What other senses can they use when hunting? Hearing, smell, touch. Some animals, like snakes, can even sense heat.

Diamonds to Dinosaurs Jubilee Wing, Level 2 Fossil Hunt

Fossil Hunt

Find these fossils. Draw a line to the animal or plant that it came from. How do we know about Dinosaurs? Humans were not around when dinosaurs were alive so we need to use the clues left behind by fossils. What can we tell from dinosaur leg bones? How they moved, how fast they ran, how many legs they

It’s Egg-citing! walked on.

Find the nest of dinosaur eggs. Draw a baby dinosaur inside this egg. What can the shape of dinosaur teeth tell us? What they ate, whether they were predators or not.

© 2009: Approved for classroom use only. How many of these kinds of animals in the display can still be found today? Examples include prawn, cuttlefish, fish, dragonfly, cockroach and wasp. Encourage children to discover as many different kinds of fossils as they can in the gallery. Examples include bones, plants, teeth, eggs, tracks and shells. How are fossils formed? Fossils are preserved remains of plants and animals that may have been covered with mud. Some fossils are prints that may have been left behind in mud. Over millions of years they have turned into rock.

It’s Egg-citing

Find the nest of dinosaur eggs from China. Can you guess what might be inside? Scientists can use special X-rays – called CAT scans, to look inside fossilised dinosaur eggs without breaking them. They sometimes find the fossilised skeletons of baby dinosaurs inside their eggs.

Discovery Centre Hackett Hall, Ground Floor Tools of the Trade

Tools of the Trade

Find the palaeontology display. Find the Palaeontology display in the corner (near the bookshelf). Draw a line to match each tool to the way it is used. What is a palaeontologist? Palaeontologists store small fossils in this. A palaeontologist is a scientist who finds and studies fossils of animals and plants that lived long ago. Palaeontologists brush sand away from fragile fossils. Look in the drawers beneath the display and find these things:

Palaeontologists measure the size of a fossil. • a dinosaur footprint Can you guess how long its steps were? Can you show me? Palaeontologists use this to break fossils out of rocks. • a Tyrannosaurus claw

K - 3 Early Childhood

We Dig Dinosaurs Student Activity Sheets

Photocopy We Dig Dinosaurs Student Activity sheets (for every student).

How To Use Student Activity Sheets Use the questions contained within the Adult Helper Guide to encourage discussion while students use their Student Activity sheets.

Galleries You will visit three galleries. The following icons are used within this document and the Student Activity sheets to identify which gallery you should be in.

Western Australia: Land and People Hackett Hall, Level 1

Diamonds to Dinosaurs Jubilee Wing, Level 2

Discovery Centre Hackett Floor,Ground Floor

Student Activity

We Dig Dinosaurs

Explore our collection of fossils and dinosaur- related objects.

www.museum.wa.gov.au 14 Western Australia: Land and People Hackett Hall, Level 1

Creep up on Carnotaurus

Mark the following:

• Its sharp, meat-eating teeth. • Its bull-like horns. • Its sharp claws, which it used to catch its prey.

Draw a close-up of the Carnotaurus’ skin in the magnifying glass.

A Dinosaur from Down Under!

Find the Muttaburrasaurus. Look carefully at its skeleton and draw it inside this body.

Draw some Muttaburrasaurus footprints.

Muttaburrasaurus langdoni

Muttaburrasaurus bones were found near a Queensland town called Muttaburra. Colour Queensland on this map of Australia.

‘T-riffic’ T-rex Find the skull of Tyrannosaurus rex.

Draw some sharp teeth in the mouth of T-rex.

T-rex

Circle the meal that T-rex might have eaten.

A meat eater is called a

______

Fossil Hunt

Find these fossils. Draw a line to the animal or plant that it came from.

It’s Egg-citing!

Find the nest of dinosaur eggs.

Draw a baby dinosaur inside this egg.

Tools of the Trade

Find the palaeontology display.

Draw a line to match each tool to the way it is used.

Palaeontologists store small fossils in this.

Palaeontologists brush sand away from fragile fossils.

Palaeontologists measure the size of a fossil.

Palaeontologists use this to break fossils out of rocks.