Bones lay bare the earth’s history to pupils

Elizabeth Bateman from Nook Lane School, Sheffield, comes face to face with a T-Rex.

Gigantic dinosaur bones which towered above the children, massive footprints, fossils and a ferocious looking model of a Tyrannosaurus rex head helped the school children from South Yorkshire experience what life on earth was like millions of years ago.

The event at Sheffield University, which helped to launch the city’s Children’s Festival, was organised by Professor Charles Wellman, senior lecturer from the university’s department of animal and plant sciences.

He said: “Children are always impressed by the sheer size of some dinosaurs and the fact that they lived on our planet so long ago and are now extinct.

“This initial attraction however, leads to a deeper interest in earth’s history and the evolution of life. My aim is to inform the children ‘how we know, what we know about dinosaurs’.

“Youngsters are fed a constant diet of dinosaurs through the media depicted as beautiful life-like animations – but what I want to stress is that dinosaurs were real and what we know about them is through detailed and exciting scientific analysis of the fossil remains they left behind.”

Prof Wellman, who has worked at the university for 16 years, impressed his audience with some dinosaur facts in an interactive lecture before the youngsters from schools around South Yorkshire took part in activities and demonstrations.

He added: “I became fascinated by fossils at a very young age. It was when my sister brought home a fossil shell she had found and someone explained to me what it was – an extinct organism from long, long ago. I began collecting fossil plants and I’ve been obsessed by all types of fossils ever since.

“I hope to inspire the next generation of scientists. The study of dinosaurs involves all sorts of diverse scientific approaches. It is truly interdisciplinary. Because children are gripped by dinosaurs they are an excellent tool to introduce them to a wide range of scientific inquiry.

“I hope this event will have brought dinosaurs closer to home and show local children the type of interesting research taking place at their local university.

“Secondly I hope that by listening to a real palaeontologist and touching the real bones the children will understand that dinosaurs are real and not just images in a book or on TV.”