Hello, Camp Families!
We are so excited to get our paleontology week started — it’s going to rock! To help you better connect with and talk about the activities we are doing this week, we have some questions you can ask them each day!
On Monday, we will learn what paleontology is! We will make a venn diagram with archology and paleontology to better understand the difference, learn about fossil forms and functions, simulate permineralization, and play Fossilise! to learn how fossils become what they are!
- What is the difference between paleontology and archeology?
- How do paleontologists know the function of fossils they find?
- Show me the fossil you created today!
On Tuesday, we will explore the connection between dinosaurs and birds! We will expand our paleontogist knowledge with a weighing dinosaur bones activity to learn how to weigh irregularly shaped objects, make Archaeopteryx flyers, tour the Evolution Gallery, observe birds in the Diag, and play a dinosaur sort game to learn what is and is not a dinosaur!
- Show me your Archaeopteryx flyer!
- What strategy did you use to weigh dinosaurs?
- How do we know that birds and dinosaurs are related?
On Wednesday, we will focus on learning about the geologic record! We will conceptualize how much a billion is, do a sedimentary layer puzzle, make sand stratigraphy jars, make a geologic time scale, and the tour the prehistoric Michigan hall!
- Show me your geologic time scale!
- What is the geologic record?
- How do we understand Earth’s history through geology?
- Tell me about your stratigraphy sand jar!
On Thursday, we will learn about monstrous megafauna and other prehistoric animals! We will make prehistoric animal dioramas, learn about prehistoric whales and make whale tooth casts, tour the Mastodon Gallery, learn about the Bristle Mammoth and other monstrous megafauna at a Hands on Discovery station, and make a comic about our favorite fossil from the gallery!
- Show me the comic you made! What fossil did you make a story for?
- What is the difference between a prehistoric and a modern whale?
- Show me your diorama!
On Friday, we are becoming paleontologist! We will explore a real paleontologist’s tool bag, make paleontologist hats, participate in a mock fossil dig, reconstruct a Scaphognathus Crassirostris fossil, make dinosaur hats, make origami dinosaurs, and we will take a look at the permineralization simulation we started on Monday!
- Show me the fossil you dug today!
- Tell me about how you reconstructed a fossil!
- How does permineralization work?