Guide A:
Introductory Guide for Junior Students
Spend the first 20 minutes of your time in the Dinosaurs in Time exhibition
getting a good overview of what is exhibited. Then follow this Guide, which will
take you to all 13 segments of the exhibition. Read the questions and write brief
answers in the spaces provided.
Be sure to check whether there are any fossil activities taking place in the
Dinosaurs in Time exhibition or in the performance space just outside the
gallery. If there are, include them in your visit.
Exhibition Segments
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Clues to the Past 8.
Measuring Time 9.
Earliest Life
10.
Diversity in the Deep
11.
Invasion of the Land
12.
Permian Extinction
13.
Dinosaurs
Hadrosaur / A Real Dinosaur
Life with Dinosaurs
Gondwana — Life in Australia
KT Extinction
The Dawn of Modern Life
Megafauna
3
4
5
1
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide A: Introductory Guide for Junior Students
1. Clues to the Past
• How many footprints are on the large slab? _ _________________________
What animal made these footprints?_ _______________________________
• Give yourself a tick when you have found:
a shell that has turned to opal
a coprolite (piece of fossilised poo)
an insect in amber (fossilised tree sap)
fossilised animal burrows
2. Measuring Time
• Find and touch the Apatosaurus thigh bone (femur).
In which country was this bone found?_ _____________________________
How old is it? _ _________________________________________________
• The Apatosaurus was a long-necked dinosaur. A similar dinosaur, called
Mamenchisaurus is on display in the middle of the exhibition.
Give yourself a tick when you have seen it.
• The Apatosaurus thigh bone is 1850 mm long.
At home, measure how far it is from your hip to your knee: __________ mm.
• Find and touch the sedimentary slab nearby. This was formed millions of
years ago from layers of sand and mud beneath the sea.
Where is this slab from?__________________________________________
How many layers can you count in it?_ ______________________________
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide A: Introductory Guide for Junior Students
3. Earliest Life
• Find and touch the stromatolite specimen.
What organisms produce stromatolites? _____________________________
Stromatolites were among the first producers of_______________________
• Find and touch the banded iron specimen.
Banded iron was formed from o __ __ __ __ __ in the atmosphere
and i __ __ __ in the oceans.
4. Diversity in the Deep
• Find and touch the large fish slab.
The fish slab is from the Devonian Period of time.1
It is therefore about
400 years old
400 thousand years old
400 million years old
Where was it found? _ ___________________________________________
• Give yourself a tick when you have found the following marine fossils:
a trilobite
a fish
a piece of coral
a graptolite
a brachiopod
an ammonoid (mollusc)
a sea star (echinoderm)
• What is the name of the group of extinct
animals that looked like this?
___________________________________
___________________________________
1
T he fish slab dates from the Devonian Period of time,
which was from 410 to 354 million years ago.
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide A: Introductory Guide for Junior Students
5. Invasion of the Land
• Find and touch the Genoa trackway.
How many footprints can you see?__________________________________
What kind of animal made the footprints?_ ___________________________
How long ago were the footprints made?_____________________________
Where were these footprints found?_ _______________________________
• Give yourself a tick when you have found the following fossils:
an early plant
a eurypterid (giant water scorpion)
the skull of a mammal-like reptile
6. Permian Extinction
• When was the Permian extinction?_ ________________________________
• Write down the names of two animals that became extinct at that time:
_
____________________________________________________________________________
7. Dinosaurs
• Tsintaosaurus belonged to the group of dinosaurs called hadrosaurs.
Tick or cross the correct statement about hadrosaurs:
Hadrosaurs made noises like ducks
Hadrosaurs had feet like ducks
Hadrosaurs had bills like ducks
• What does the name Gallimimus mean?_ ____________________________
Why did scientists give it this name?_ _______________________________
_
____________________________________________________________________________ Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide A: Introductory Guide for Junior Students
What do scientists think that Gallimimus ate?_ ________________________
_
____________________________________________________________________________
• Tarbosaurus lived in Asia. Which close relative of Tarbosaurus lived in
North America? _ _______________________________________________
Look at this dinosaur’s teeth. What did it eat?_ ________________________
• In what way was Mamenchisaurus special? Tick or cross:
It had the smallest brain of any animal that has ever lived
It had the longest neck of any animal that has ever lived
It had the biggest feet of any animal that has ever lived
• Deinonychus was a meat-eater. How can you tell? _____________________
_
____________________________________________________________________________
• Look up at Pteranodon. What sort of animal was it?
a bird a dinosaur a flying reptile
8. Hadrosaur / A Real Dinosaur
• What work would have to be done on the hadrosaur before it could be put
on display in an upright position like the other dinosaurs? _ ______________
_
____________________________________________________________________________
9. Life with Dinosaurs
• Dinosaurs lived in the Mesozoic Era, 250 million to 65 million years ago.
Name some other animals that lived at the same time: __________________
_
____________________________________________________________________________
• Why is Archaeopteryx a special fossil? ______________________________
_
____________________________________________________________________________
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide A: Introductory Guide for Junior Students
• Hypsilophodon was a small, fast-running herbivorous dinosaur that lived in
Victoria, as well as in other parts of the world. What did these dinosaurs
eat?__________________________________________________________
_
____________________________________________________________________________
• Find the Ichthyosaur on the wall through the window. These extinct
swimming reptiles looked a bit like d __ __ p h __ __ s, but were not related
to them.
• Find and touch the ammonoid.
These animals became extinct millions of years ago.
Where did they live when they were alive?_ __________________________
Draw the ammonoid here:
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide A: Introductory Guide for Junior Students
10.Gondwana — Life in Australia
• Find the fossil bones from small dinosaurs that have been found in Victoria.
Write down the name of one of these dinosaurs: _ _____________________
• Find and touch the large sea shell (bivalve mollusc).
This large sea shell was found in Queensland, far from the sea. When this
animal was alive, what was the centre of Australia like?_________________
_
____________________________________________________________________________
• Find the fossils from Koonwarra in Gippsland. What kinds of fossils are on
display?_______________________________________________________
11.KT Extinction
• A mass extinction occurred 65 million years ago. What sorts of animals
became extinct?_ _______________________________________________
• What do scientists think caused the mass extinction? _ _________________
_
______________________________________________________________
12.The Dawn of Modern Life
• Give yourself a tick when you find an example of the following fossils:
a leaf
a fish
coral
a crab (crustacean)
a brachiopod
a sea urchin (echinoderm)
a scallop (mollusc)
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide A: Introductory Guide for Junior Students
13.Megafauna (two locations)
• The fossils displayed in this segment are from animals known as the
megafauna (meaning ‘big animals’). They are now extinct.
They became extinct:
at the same time as the dinosaurs
long after the dinosaurs became extinct
before the dinosaurs became extinct
• Were there any humans living at the same time as:
the dinosaurs
YES / NO
the megafauna YES / NO
• Zygomaturus was about as big as a ______________ (cat, sheep, cow,
elephant).
• What sort of animal was Sthenurus?_ _______________________________
• Diprotodon was the biggest marsupial ever. It are___________(grass, meat).
• Megalania was a large carnivore. Which modern Australiam animal was it
related to? ____________________________________________________
• Genyornis looked like an emu, but was actually a giant ______________
(magpie, duck, kookaburra).
The Diprotodon was the largest of the extinct Australian megafauna.
It may have looked like this.
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide B:
Short Guide for Junior Students
Spend the first 20 minutes of your time in the Dinosaurs in Time exhibition
getting a good overview of what is exhibited. Then follow this Guide, which will
take you to all 13 segments of the exhibition. Read the questions and write brief
answers in the spaces provided.
Be sure to check whether there are any fossil activities taking place in the
Dinosaurs in Time exhibition or in the performance space just outside the
gallery. If there are, include them in your visit.
Exhibition Segments
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Clues to the Past 8.
Measuring Time 9.
Earliest Life
10.
Diversity in the Deep
11.
Invasion of the Land
12.
Permian Extinction
13.
Dinosaurs
Hadrosaur / A Real Dinosaur
Life with Dinosaurs
Gondwana — Life in Australia
KT Extinction
The Dawn of Modern Life
Megafauna
3
4
5
1
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
13
7
2
6
8
11
9
http://museumvictoria.com.au/education
10
12
1
Guide B: Short Guide for Junior Students
1. Clues to the Past
• How many footprints are on the large slab? _ _________________________
What animal made these footprints? ________________________________
• Give yourself a tick when you have found:
a shell that has turned to opal
a coprolite (piece of fossilised poo)
an insect in amber (fossilised tree sap)
fossilised animal burrows
2. Measuring Time
• Find and touch the Apatosaurus thigh bone (femur). Apatosaurus was a
long-necked dinosaur, similar to Mamenchisaurus (on display in the middle
of the exhibition).
3. Earliest Life
• Find and touch the stromatolite specimen.
Some stromatolite fossils are very old — much older than the dinosaurs.
They are produced by lots of tiny bacteria working together.
4. Diversity in the Deep
• Find and touch the large fish slab
Where was this slab found?_______________________________________
• What is the name of the extinct group of
animals that looked like this?
_
_________________________________________
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide B: Short Guide for Junior Students
5. Invasion of the Land
• Eurypterids (water scorpions) were the first land animals.
Give yourself a tick when you have found the fossil of a giant
water scorpion.
• Find and touch the Genoa trackway.
How many footprints can you see?__________________________________
What kind of animal made the footprints?_ ___________________________
6. Permian Extinction
• Many animals became extinct about 250 million years ago. The first
dinosaurs appeared soon after this time.
7. Dinosaurs
• Which dinosaur …
was a vicious little predator? __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
had a muzzle like a duck’s bill? __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
had no teeth, and looked like a big chicken? __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
was a close relative of Tyrannosaurus rex? __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
had the longest neck of any dinosaur?__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
(Choose from Tsintaosaurus, Mamenchisaurus, Tarbosaurus, Gallimimus, Deinonychus)
8. Hadrosaur / A Real Dinosaur
• What work would have to be done on the hadrosaur before it could be put
on display in an upright position like the other dinosaurs?________________
_
______________________________________________________________
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide B: Short Guide for Junior Students
9. Life with Dinosaurs
• Give yourself a tick when you find:
a Hypsilophodon (dinosaur)
an ichthyosaur
a dinosaur egg
Archaeopteryx, an early bird
• Find and touch the ammonoid.
These animals once lived in the sea, but became extinct millions of years ago.
Draw the ammonoid here:
10.Gondwana— Life in Australia
• Find the fossil bones from small dinosaurs that have been found in Victoria.
Write down the name of one of these dinosaurs: _ _____________________
• Find the fossils from Koonwarra in Gippsland. What kinds of fossils are on
display? _ _____________________________________________________
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide B: Short Guide for Junior Students
11.KT Extinction
• The extinction of the dinosaurs may have been caused by volcanoes in India
or by an asteroid hitting the Earth near Mexico. When did this happen?
__________________ million years ago.
12.The Dawn of Modern Life
• Inspect the fossils in this segment, and then go to the final segment of the
exhibition.
13.Megafauna
The fossils displayed in this segment are from animals known as the megafauna
(meaning ‘big animals’). They lived after the dinosaurs, but are now extinct.
• Zygomaturus was about as big as a ______________ (cat, sheep, cow,
elephant).
• What sort of animal was Sthenurus? ________________________________
• Diprotodon was the biggest marsupial ever. It are___________(grass, meat).
• Megalania was a large carnivore. Which modern Australiam animal was it
related to? ____________________________________________________
• Genyornis looked like an emu, but was actually a giant ______________
(magpie, duck, kookaburra).
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide B: Short Guide for Junior Students
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide C: Find and Touch
Spend the first 20 minutes of your time in the Dinosaurs in Time exhibition
getting a good overview of what is exhibited. Then follow this Guide, which will
take you to all 13 segments of the exhibition. Read the questions and write brief
answers in the spaces provided.
Be sure to check whether there are any fossil activities taking place in the
Dinosaurs in Time exhibition or in the performance space just outside the
gallery. If there are, include them in your visit.
Exhibition Segments
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Clues to the Past 8.
Measuring Time 9.
Earliest Life
10.
Diversity in the Deep
11.
Invasion of the Land
12.
Permian Extinction
13.
Dinosaurs
Hadrosaur / A Real Dinosaur
Life with Dinosaurs
Gondwana — Life in Australia
KT Extinction
The Dawn of Modern Life
Megafauna
3
4
5
1
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
13
7
2
6
8
11
9
http://museumvictoria.com.au/education
10
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Guide C: Find and Touch
Segment 2: Measuring Time
• Find and touch the Apatosaurus thigh bone (femur).
Write down two words that describe how it feels:______________________
Where was this bone found? ______________________________________
How old is it?___________________________________________________
• The Apatosaurus was a long-necked dinosaur. A similar dinosaur, called
Mamenchisaurus is on display in the middle of the exhibition.
Give yourself a tick when you have seen it.
• Find and touch the sedimentary slab nearby. This was formed millions of
years ago from layers of sand and mud beneath the sea.
Describe how it feels:____________________________________________
Where is this slab from?__________________________________________
How many layers can you count in it?_ ______________________________
Segment 3: Earliest Life
• Find and touch the stromatolite specimen.
What organisms produce stromatolites?_ ____________________________
Stromatolites were among the first producers of_______________________
• Find and touch the banded iron formation specimen.
Banded iron was formed from o _ _ _ _ _ in the atmosphere and i _ _ _ in the
oceans.
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide C: Find and Touch
Segment 4: Diversity in the Deep
• Find and touch the large fish slab.
Write down two words that describe how it feels:______________________
The fish slab is from the Devonian Period of time.2
How old is it?
about 400 years old
about 400 thousand years old
about 400 million years old
Where was it found?_________
Segment 5: Invasion of the Land
• Find and touch the Genoa trackway.
How many footprints can you see?__________________________________
What kind of animal made the footprints?_ ___________________________
How long ago were the footprints made?_____________________________
Where were these footprints found?_ _______________________________
Segment 9: Life with Dinosaurs
• Find and touch the ammonoid.
Describe how it feels: ____________________________________________
These animals became extinct millions of years ago.
Where did they live when they were alive?_ __________________________
Draw the ammonoid here:
2
The Devonian Period of time was from 410 to 354 million years ago.
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide C: Find and Touch
Segment 10: Gondwana— Life in Australia
• Find and touch the large sea shell (bivalve mollusc).
This large sea shell was found in Queensland, far from the sea. When this
animal was alive, what was the centre of Australia like?_________________
_
_ _____________________________________________________________ Teachers and students please note:
Section 2.9 of the education kit for this exhibition is entitled ‘Touch Objects’. It has some
additional information on the eight fossils that you have visited.
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide D: Dinosaurs!
Spend the first 20 minutes of your time in the Dinosaurs in Time exhibition
getting a good overview of what is exhibited. Then follow this Guide, which will
take you to all 13 segments of the exhibition. Read the questions and write brief
answers in the spaces provided.
Be sure to check whether there are any fossil activities taking place in the
Dinosaurs in Time exhibition or in the performance space just outside the
gallery. If there are, include them in your visit.
Exhibition Segments
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Clues to the Past 8.
Measuring Time 9.
Earliest Life
10.
Diversity in the Deep
11.
Invasion of the Land
12.
Permian Extinction
13.
Dinosaurs
Hadrosaur / A Real Dinosaur
Life with Dinosaurs
Gondwana — Life in Australia
KT Extinction
The Dawn of Modern Life
Megafauna
3
4
5
1
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
13
7
2
6
8
11
9
http://museumvictoria.com.au/education
10
12
1
Guide D: Dinosaurs!
1. Clues to the Past
• The footprints on the slab were made by an amphibian that lived before the
dinosaurs. How many footprints can you see?_________________________
• Give yourself a tick when you have found:
a shell that has turned to opal
a coprolite (piece of fossilised poo)
an insect in amber (fossilised tree sap)
fossilised animal burrows
2. Measuring Time
• Find and touch the Apatosaurus thigh bone (femur).
Where was this bone found?_ _____________________________________
How old is it?___________________________________________________
• The Apatosaurus was a long-necked dinosaur. A similar dinosaur, called
Mamenchisaurus is on display in the middle of the exhibition.
Give yourself a tick when you have seen it.
3. Earliest Life
• Find and touch the stromatolite specimen.
Stromatolites were formed by millions of tiny bacteria. Some stromatolites
were formed long before there were any dinosaurs. Other stromatolites are
still being formed today.
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide D: Dinosaurs!
4. Diversity in the Deep
• Touch the large slab containing fossil fish. Fish lived on Earth long before the
dinosaurs, and there are still fish in the oceans today!
Where was this slab found?_______________________________________
5. Invasion of the Land
• All the fossils in this segment are older than the dinosaurs. Give yourself a
tick when you have found:
the tracks of an ancient amphibian (from Genoa in Victoria)
the giant water scorpion
6. Permian Extinction
• Many animals, especially those that lived in the sea, became extinct about
250 million years ago. Perhaps the Earth was hit by an asteroid, or perhaps
volcanoes polluted the atmosphere.
7. Dinosaurs
Go to the large dinosaur casts in the centre of the exhibition. These are all casts
of original dinosaur fossils from China, Mongolia and America.
• Which dinosaur …..
was a vicious little predator? __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
had a muzzle like a duck’s bill? __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
had no teeth, and looked like a big chicken? __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
was a close relative of Tyrannosaurus rex? __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
had the longest neck of any dinosaur?__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
(Choose from Tsintaosaurus, Mamenchisaurus, Tarbosaurus, Gallimimus, Deinonychus)
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide D: Dinosaurs!
• Look up at the model of Pteranodon. This flying reptile wasn’t a dinosaur, but
lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. Do you know what Pteranodon ate?
_
_ _____________________________________________________________
8. Hadrosaur / A Real Dinosaur
• What work would have to be done on the hadrosaur before it could be put
on display in an upright position like the other dinosaurs? _ ______________
_
________________________________________________________________________________________
9. Life with Dinosaurs
• Archaeopteryx is the oldest known bird.
Scientists believe that early birds were closely related to dinosaurs.
Archaeopteryx had teeth, a long tail, and wings with claws. It looked a lot
like a small dinosaur, except that it had f
_ _ _ _ _ _ _.
• Give yourself a tick when you find:
a Hypsilophodon (dinosaur)
an ichthyosaur
a dinosaur egg
10.Gondwana — Life in Australia
• Dinosaur fossils have been found near Cape Otway and near Inverloch in
Victoria. Most are single bones from quite small dinosaurs.
How old are these fossils?_ _______________________________________
11.KT Extinction
• The extinction of the dinosaurs may have been caused by volcanoes in India
or by an asteroid hitting the Earth near Mexico. When did this happen?
_
________________________________________________________________________________________
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide D: Dinosaurs!
12.The Dawn of Modern Life
Inspect the fossils in this segment, and then go on to the last segment of the
exhibition.
13.Megafauna
Long after the dinosaurs became extinct, very large animals including giant
possums, wombats and kangaroos lived in Australia. They are all extinct now.
• Zygomaturus was about as big as a ______________ (cat, sheep, cow,
elephant).
• What sort of animal was Sthenurus?
• Diprotodon was the biggest marsupial ever. It are___________(grass, meat).
• Megalania was a large carnivore. Which modern Australiam animal was it
related to? ____________________________________________________
• Genyornis looked like an emu, but was actually a giant ______________
(magpie, duck, kookaburra).
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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Guide D: Dinosaurs!
If time allows:
Artists study the fossils of extinct animals and try to draw what these animals
might have looked like. Revisit the central display of dinosaurs and try to write
the name of each dinosaur under its illustration below.
Melbourne Museum Dinosaurs in Time
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