Dinosaur Fossil Museum

September 29, 2019

Dinosaurs Fossils
Have you ever wondered how we know so much about the dinosaurs, even though it’s been 65 million years since they walked the Earth? We have fossils to thank for that! Fossils can give scientists clues about animals and plants that lived a long, long time ago.

What Are Fossils?

Fossils are the remains of animals or plants that were once living.

We made dough out of salt, flour and water to make our fossils.

There are two main types of fossils: body fossils and print or trace fossils. Body fossils are the remains of plants or animals that were once living. The most common examples are dinosaur bones. Print or trace fossils are signs of once-living organisms such as a footprint.

Sometimes even footprints and burrows (holes that animals live in) can be fossilized. For example, dinosaur footprints from long ago may have filled with sediment (sand, mud, little pieces of rock) and then eventually hardened into fossils.

Dinosaur Skeletons

Dinosaurs have bones and have a spine like us. We call the spine a vertebrate.

We used pasta to make spines and bones on our dinosaur silhouette.

Where do you find fossils?

Sometimes the body of a dead animal or plant sinks into dirt or mud. Some parts of the animal’s body will decay over time, but harder, stronger parts like teeth and bones will remain.

We made a crayon rubbing of a skeleton. Then we painted the dirt to show that dinosaur fossils are found underground.

What is paleontology?

The study of life that existed in geologic periods many, many years ago is called paleontology. The scientists who study paleontology are called paleontologists, and they mostly use fossils to learn about the past.

Plant fossils are made when a plant is pressed down in the mud and layers of sediment.

Fossils can give us a lot of information about the past that we never would have known without them: what animals and plants looked like, where animals traveled, what animals ate, and more.

Dinosaur Dig

We made dinosaur rocks stuffed with dinosaurs to use as paleontologists and do a dinosaur dig.

Cement Fossils

We created our own DINO fossil with a dinosaur toy model, some Plaster-of-Paris and modeling clay.

You can use this technique to create Dino models of your favorite Dinosaur.

These mold fossils are a great way to see the shape of the dinosaurs. We pressed a dinosaur into the play dough and pored plaster into the space after we took out the dinosaur.

Making a Dinosaur Skeleton

Creating a Dinosaur Mural

Dinosaur Skeleton Bones

In 1858, one of the first almost complete dinosaur skeletons was discovered in New Jersey. What made this discovery special was that it was a bipedal dinosaur, meaning one that moved on two legs. Most scientists had previously thought that all dinosaurs moved on four feet.