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Post-visit Activity Answers

All Groups | Dinosaur Experts | Exhibit Investigation | Teachers

All Groups

Your trip to the Museum can be enhanced by follow up visits to a local fossil site such as the Aurora Fossil Museum.

Does your class have the next Steven Spielberg or Michael Crichton? Take some artistic license with the exhibit and use it for inspiration to suggest art, writing, or theater projects. Some ideas:

  • If dinosaurs had not become extinct, what might they look like today? Draw a picture of what you imagine.
  • Draw a new species of dinosaur that you have discovered. What unusual features does it have, and what were they for? Make up a good name for it, using the root word meanings.
  • What would you do if YOU found a dinosaur egg? What kind of dinosaur would you like to hatch out of it? What would you feed it? Could you teach it any tricks? What kind of trouble do you think it would it get in if it lived in your house or yard?
  • You have just been hired to write the screenplay for Jurassic Park IV: The Time Machine. What are some interesting problems someone might face using a time machine to go back to the Mesozoic Era? You can have any actors you want, and a Spielbergian budget.

Send in your best projects, and we'll post our favorites on the website! Send materials to:

Liz Baird
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
11 W. Jones St., Raleigh, NC 27601

Please include the following information: Teacher's name and contact information, school name, student(s) name(s) and grade. All submissions become the property of the NC Museum of Natural Sciences, and will not be returned.

Dinosaur Experts

Use the information from your visit to the Museum to prepare a Field Guide Page for your dinosaur. If time allows additional information can be found in your media center. Bind all of the Field Guide Pages together to create your own class copy of a Field Guide to the Dinosaurs. Sample Field Guide Page

Exhibit Investigation

Build Your Own Exhibit
Use the information from your visit to the Museum to design your own class "Dinosaur Museum." If appropriate, teams can even construct their dinosaur exhibit on a small scale and invite other students to view the finished projects. Things to consider when building an exhibit:

  • Who is your audience? (younger students? Parents? scientists?)
  • What is your primary message?
  • What media will you use to convey this message? (models, photos, information panels)
  • How will you make it durable and changeable as new information is discovered?

Worksheet Follow-up Questions
Use the information from your worksheets to help answer these post-visit questions. Some of these questions are designed with higher level thinking skills in mind. Therefore, answers may vary. Review the background information to help answer the questions.

Section I: How Do We Know?

Communication
How did dinosaurs communicate?
What evidence do we have?
How do we communicate today?
What other ways do animals communicate?

Fossils
What things can you learn from fossils?
What can you infer from studying fossils?
What can't you learn from fossils?

Sections II, III, IV: Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous Periods


Compare the three time periods (Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous).
Compare the three periods of the Mesozoic Era, and describe some of the changes (continents, plants, animals) over time.
Is there a pattern in the relationships of continental position, topography, plants, and animals?
Could you predict what to expect 100 million years from now?

Section V: Extinction and the Movie

Several reasons for dinosaur extinction are presented. Which explanation do you think is the best? Why?
Some of the dinosaurs in the movie had differences from their 'real life' fossil counterparts. Why do you think changes were made for the movie version?
Do you think it is possible to bring back an extinct species? Would it ever be possible? Why or why not?

Teachers

Educators are encouraged to apply for our Educator of Excellence Institute to Alberta Canada where we will visit one of the world's best known fossil fields with our expert paleontologist Dale Russell. Click here for more information.

Please email us and let us know how you used this Teacher's Guide and whether we should provide similar materials on the website for future exhibits. What was most useful? What was least useful? We want your feedback!

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The Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park: The Lost World was produced by Dinosaur Exhibitions, LLC, under the direction of "Dino" Don Lessem, and in partnership with Universal Studios and Amblin Entertainment. The exhibition was designed by Museum Design Associates. Jurassic Park and Lost World are trademarks of Universal City Studios and Amblin Entertainment.

Teachers Guide materials developed by San Diego Natural History Museum and used by permission. Some activities adapted or developed by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

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