Dino learning at Melbourne Museum.
Image: Leanne McMahon
Source: Leanne McMahon
Why students should learn about dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs in Time is one of Melbourne Museum's most popular exhibits, particularly with younger students. Excited groups descend on the Evolution Gallery daily to ooh and aah at the enormous monsters on display.
Students also ask some great questions. One Grade 2 group, as part of their pre-visit activity, sent 'Dear Education Officer' letters wanting to know:
- What was the first dinosaur that lived?
- How were the dinosaurs named?
- How deep do you have to dig to find a bone?
- When there was nothing to eat, did they eat themselves?
- How fat were they?
Education officers are sometimes asked whether all this interest in extinct creatures is a good use of class time. Teachers make a very good case for including dinosaurs in the curriculum:
- Children have a natural interest in fantasy. The fantasy involved in the creative study of dinosaurs can be used to stimulate an interest in learning more generally.
- Childhood should be a time when children can pursue interests and hobbies without many of the constraints which come later.
- The study of dinosaurs opens doors in all directions. Writing, reading, talking, maths and drawing skills can all come together when learning about reptiles, carnivores and herbivores, fossilisation, geology, carbon and atomic dating, classification and even astronomy.
Just spare a thought for the education officer whose job it is to respond to each and every letter!