knit piggie photo source: Lorie Pierce
And now to start developing the next mini-museum based on Awesome Animals.
My intention is to focus on the research done at the museum on specific species such as Guyanan bats, red knot birds, ratites (flightless birds), frogs and other amphibians plus animals that are featured in our galleries.
So time for a trip to the galleries with my camera and see where the images lead me.
He’s a lot taller than I remember.
And he was a fabulous participant in our recent dinosaur mini-museum. Here he is learning about coprolites – or fossilized dinosaur poop and what paleontologists can learn from it.
Lorie and Ronald with the Dinosaur Edukit photo source: Barb Magee
The kids loved helping Ronald with the activities including Futa-Ball (unrolling a 30 metre long ball of cord to see how long a Futalognkosaurus really was).
An additional sighting….don’t you love the shoes?
what size are these? photo source: Barb Magee
Since I came across the website oneupme.com, I have become a great fan of analogies.
Not being a Facebook user, I do not play the game…but I go on the site often to see the creative analogies that others have come up with for the topic of the day. Recently, the topic was Egypt. Here is the example and then some of the 100 plus answers to the phrase “She’s like the Nile River……”
Step pyramid of Djoser photo source: wiki commons
She’s like the Nile river… e.g. meandered through Africa
She has a big mouth
banks in several different countries
I thought I got over her but I’m still in denial
I took a cruise; it was on her
Her heart will always be in Africa.
She ran into the lake with nothing on her.
She had smooth sailing except for the ass-ps
Holds the record for long-distance running
carved out a niche for herself over time
she comes up a lot in support groups.
all the locals got the goods on her
shallow
carries baskets with babies
She carried a baby through Egypt in a basket
She’s on cruise control
Runs in the opposite direction than most
she knew King Tut
She’ll be dammed if she lets her people down.
her banks dissolved after her liquidation
She has gorgeous curves
her dresses are historically high silt – ed
saw photos of her wild life on the internet
The answer in bold got the most votes for best analogy of the day.
I’ve often regretted that I did not become a paleontologist. Some amateur fossil hunting in Alberta, Washington State, Oregon and Ontario has been the sum total of my field work.
But then I get to thinking about what hard back-breaking work it can be. Add to that the other miscellaneous perils. Here is one I never thought of described by the ‘grandfather of Alaskan paleontology” Roland Gangloff.
For an expert in extinct animals, Gangloff has a lot to say about one living species — Alaska ground squirrels.
“We had to work under 100-foot-high cliffs,” he recalled. “They burrow along the top and kick rocks and sediment and stuff down on us. Anytime they can, they’ll steal food. They’ll tear up tents to get to food. We put the food in boats and tied them off away from shore, but we caught one squirrel going hand-over-hand along the anchor ropes to get to the food. They even came for caribou we’d shot for food and hung up. Don’t let anyone tell you they can’t be carnivores.
“People worry about bears, but we had little trouble with them. The ground squirrels were much more of a nemesis than any other animal.”
It’s a week now until the dinosaur mini-museum.
display from Ultimate Dinosaur exhibit, ROM photo source: Lorie Pierce
The event posters and sign-up sheet have been sent to the venue. Most of the materials we will need for the activities were readied at a ‘prep’ meeting last Wednesday. The To Do list is now a short one.
Now comes the time to consider whether all the activities will be included. The main concern is volunteer staffing for the activities. I have enough now but if anyone is ill, there will not be enough coverage.
So let me take a look at what is in the plans….
So most of the activities will make the cut, as long as there are 5 volunteers available. If not, Fossil Layers can be added to the take-away activities and Fossil Casting may not be possible at this event.
UPDATE:
We have use of an iPad so the children will be able to see the dinosaurs come to life through Augmented Reality. Also another volunteer has joined so it looks like fossil casting is back in.
And the biggest news is that a mascot from the venue (a well-known clown) will be attending!
I absolutely love the theropod mask from the National Museum of Scotland that I found on the show.me.uk.com website. Probably is a T-Rex, but with those blade shaped teeth, also could be Giganotosuarus. Just the right type of activity for our mini-museum event.
original colour mask, National Museum Scotland source: show.me.uk.com
However, to use the mask in this format will eat up a lot of expensive printer ink.
Fortunately the same source gives us a grayscale version of the mask.
grayscale version of mask (printed on buff coloured card stock)
So I printed this version off……after all, the kids at the event can colour it up themselves. Since no one knows what colours these animals were, we will provide a wide range of crayon shades to choose from.
But the mask still uses up a lot of black ink in this format so I went hunting to see if it could be printed in a different format. Here are the steps I took.
1. Trim the extraneous text off the mask template. This information (with credits) will be on a sign at the activity table.
2. Cut out the template just outside of the ‘cut here’ marks to reduce background shading.
3. Scan the remaining mask into a jpeg file.
4. Upload that image file into a Powerpoint slide. With the image highlighted, click on Format > Picture > Artistic filters
5. Choose the ‘photocopy’ filter and you will get an image that looks like this….
mask is now trimmed and filtered
Still the same wonderful artwork but with less black.
One more step…print as a grayscale image and you get this.
grayscale version of trimmed mask
Now to print some up on cardstock and find a spool of elastic cord to complete the masks.
My admiration goes out to the National Museum Scotland for providing such wonderful artwork for non-commercial use.
museumtalkarchive 