Yesterday, the museum was filled with Junior Paleontologists. Over 70 kids, 50 parents, and 8 volunteers, joined in on our weekly Saturday at 1 program. This program was brought to us by Devil’s Coulee, which is the site where the first dinosaur eggs were found in Canada. Until January 30th, in the lower level of the museum, you can see a display about Wendy Sloboda who found the eggs, and see some real life examples of dinosaur eggs.

Devil’s Coulee designed the program to help kids learn how to find and identify fossils and how to grid a dig site just like a paleontologist. This is the Devil’s Coulee staff and volunteers setting up the program in the Community Savings Learning Studio at the museum:

During the program the kids explored three stations. At the first station they learned to grid a dig site and record their findings just like paleontologists do when they are doing their work. At the second station kids found marine fossils and identified and recorded their finds in a pass-book/journal. During the time when dinosaurs were alive there were lots of other animals sharing the earth – including marine reptiles and flying lizards. You can learn more about what animals lived with dinosaurs in our Dinosaurs and Company Exhibit until the end of January.

The third station allowed the kids to find and identify different dinosaur bones. As our exhibit also shows, paleontologists make new scientific discoveries all the time based on the fossils they find. For example, we now know that some dinosaurs cared for their young instead of just laying eggs and abandoning them.

Next week, on January 23rd, at our Saturday at 1 program we will learn more about how science has changed over time and how it impacts the way dinosaurs are depicted in the movies. In other programming news, our Wednesday January 20th program will talk about the history of the first full length dinosaur movie, based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s book The Lost World, and then we’ll get to watch the movie. Museum doors open at 6pm and the program starts at 7pm.