Amateur Palentologists
In preparation for our trip to Fernbank, we became amateur palentologists for a day and discovered what it would be like to assemble a mystery dinosaur.
Maddox, Tyler, and Eli try to assemble the four bones their team discovered on the first "day" of their dig.
Joshua and Jameson's group found a very different set of bones and have assembled a different looking creature. Remember, all groups have the same bones - they just uncovered them on different days based on which ones were drawn from their envelopes.
Cayleigh and Natalie's group assemble their Day 2 bones into one creature. They announced that this was a unicorn fish.
Maddox takes notes on his group's ideas as his teammates watch and offer help.
Trisha shows her group where she thinks a new bone should go.
The boys debate where each fossil should be placed, checking their Day 1 work carefully before drawing their Day 2 bones.
Cayleigh, Elvie, and Kamdun discuss how to best add their new bones to their mystery dinosaur.
Trisha and Devon work closley together to assemble the new pieces from their last day of digging.
Halle and Rebekah try to find the best fit for their new bones as they puzzle over the mystery dinosaur.
After three "days" of digging, each team unearths 10 bones. The cold weather of Montana then forces teams to return to the university, where they compare their fossils with those of other palentologist teams in the area. (It seems these other teams have found a similar fossils.) The teams then help each other think about which pieces of the dinosaur may still be burried as they combine their ideas to create a new creature.
After discussing, the teams are then allowed to unearth all of their bones and are given a Skeleton Field Guide that shows the real skeletons of modern creatures, such as bats, cats, frogs, and fish. The palentologists use these diagrams to help them piece together their fossils.
Dany helps his group compare their fossils to the ones on the Skeleton Field Guide as Ulissa learns from their ideas and uses their findings to help her home team.
Kamdun, Chandler, and Cayleigh have a lively discussion of how the bones compare as Elvie takes notes.
Natalie shows her group the bat fossils, pointing out how their bones are very similar. The group then rearranges their bones to better fit a normal skeletal pattern.
Devin is very excited about his group's final design. It seems like the crews have discovered a flying dinosaur, like a pterodactyl.
This group poses with their finished work. Great job!
Tyler is very excited about his group's success in making a flying dinosaur skeleton.
Through this exercise, students learned how difficult the job of a palentologist is, how modern day animals can teach us about extinct species, how bones fit together, how to work as a team, and how scientists help each other.
