Jurassic Park Science

I planned a Jurassic Park themed science afternoon inspired by Elementary Shenanigans post.  I've been really excited about the idea of "setting the stage to engage" lately. This entails background sounds, hands on activities, costumes, props and flipping the classroom to look like a new environment. 

To set the stage here, I turned our desks into Jeeps and gave them all worker hats with Jurassic Park symbols on them. I put a big picture of dinosaurs on the board and played rainforest background noise. 

 I ordered a block with t-rex bones in it and they used tools and water to extract the bones.

 

 

 

We had dinosaur snot to play with! I made a Borax based slime with yellow liquid watercolor. 

 

  

We pressed dinosaurs into play dough to see what their fossils would look like. 

 

 

We discovered dinosaur bones from a stegosaurus in sand and then tried to assemble our 3D puzzle. 

 

Our final and most popular activity was dinosaur dung.  I used brownie mix for the dung and made two trays, one for a carnivore and one for an herbivore.  I put leaves, berries, and sticks in one and plastic bones and feathers in the other. They had to identify which dung was an herbivore and which was a carnivore.