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What About Dinosaurs?
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18464 |
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NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
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9 / 1990 |
2,050 Words |
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Wm. Lee Stokes
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The great Age of Dinosaurs ended about 65 million years ago with no one around to describe or explain it. But in the last century and a half, long-buried remains have come to light, and a second man-made age of dinosaurs now prevails. Without deliberately trying we have accorded them a uniquely high position, not only in serious science but also in public esteem. As soon as their skeletons were first cleaned, patched, and securely set on their feet, they vanquished all foes in the public eye. They soon replaced Egyptian mummies and classic statues as chief attractions in museums everywhere. Any natural history museum worth the name simply must have a dinosaur. Almost all modern natural history museums are being built around dinosaurs, and older institutions, such as the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., and the American Museum of Natural History in New York, have updated their displays to give dinosaurs highest billing.
Like rare works of art, there never were and never will be enough originals to go around. As interest grew and demand increased, new quarries were discovered and old ones enlarged. When original material proved to be insufficient, museum curators went to work with plaster and plastics to create replicas that can't be distinguished from the real thing. Still not enough! Dinosaurs became big business when companies were organized to produce and sell lifelike, computer-operated, high-tech replicas that move, bellow, and roll their eyes.
Children spark the dinosaur boom
It is children who carry on and renew the dinosaur craze. Dinosaurs combine the real and unreal, the known and the unknown, the fearsome and the harmless in ways that are irresistible to the average youngster.
Anyone wanting to share the youthful enthusiasm for dinosaurs should stand near the largest skeleton in the exhibit when children from the lower grades come to visit the museum, As one guide said to me, “All hell breaks loose on Dinosaur Day!” And Dinosaur Day isn't usually enough; there is Dinosaur Week, Dinosaur Month, and even the Year of the Dinosaur. All these occasions are sure to draw long lines of school buses and plenty of ordinary vehicles.
Perceptive grade school teachers are taking advantage of the natural enthusiasm of children for monsters to carry out organized dinosaur projects. A written essay is usually required which, if property supervised, serves as an introduction to library research, subject organization, and logical composition. Words like Tyrannosaurus are an extra incentive for children who are learning to spell, pronounce, and correctly use the language. Art is a natural adjunct. At the stage when drawing and coloring come naturally, dinosaurs are perfect subjects. What child doesn't enjoy creating a rampaging Tyrannosaurus, a defensive Triceratops, or an ornate Stegosaurus? Surely these are easier and more exciting to draw than cats, dogs, horses, and cows.
Students may even cooperate to cover an entire wall with a scene from the Age of Dinosaurs, filling in a background of appropriate vegetation and landforms. Through such projects young people can think seriously about the prehistoric past, and a field trip to a local museum can take on genuine meaning.
An unexpected
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