Grab your Palaeontologist hat and tools as we discover fascinating fossils from Australia’s dinosaurs! Discover the size, shape, diet and other features of Australia’s dinosaurs. Create your very own dinosaur using provided materials.

Dinosaur remains have been found on every continent on Earth and we know these creatures dominated the planet’s ecosystems for around 140 million years. But despite their abundance elsewhere, few discoveries have been made in Australia. Given Australia’s geographic isolation, many of Australia’s dinosaurs evolved as unique species adapted to extreme conditions.

Australia’s dinosaurs are known mainly from fragmentary fossils. Dinosaur fossils have been found mainly in the Eastern half of Australia (Queensland, New South Wales & Victoria). Today these fossils give us insight into what they might have looked like and how they may have lived.

Victoria may have had one of the world’s most diverse array of small ornithopod dinosaurs, which had a surprisingly hardy ability to survive at least 3 months of winter darkness annually. These ornithopods moved around on 2 legs, ate plants, lived together in herds for safety, and included unique features such as large eyes for the gloomy light.

You will receive hands on materials and a teacher VC guide that also includes follow-up activities.

No prior knowledge is required.

In this program students will:

• Learn about various dinosaurs of Australia.
• Learn that we use fossils as evidence that these dinosaurs once roamed Australia millions of years ago.
• Compare and contrast the size, shape, diet and other features of Australian dinosaurs.
• Understand the meanings of the scientific terms: ‘fossils’ and ‘Palaeontologists’.
• Learn how to identify various Australian dinosaurs.

In this video conference students will:

• Observe and listen to information about various dinosaurs of Australia.
• Pretend to be Palaeontologists.
• Sing and move to the “I am a Palaeontologist” song.
• Create a model of an Australian dinosaur out of plasticine.

Science: Science as a human endeavour

• Science is used by people in their daily lives, including asking questions and using patterns from observations of the world around them to make scientific predictions (VC2S2H02)

Science: Science understanding

• Plants and animals have observable features that can be used to group them in different ways (VC2S2U01)
• Plants and animals have external features that perform different functions to enable their survival; in plants these features include roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruit, bulbs, trunks and branches while different features in animals enable them to move, breathe, eat and respond to their environment (VC2S2U03)

Science: Science inquiry

• Experiences can be used as a basis for posing questions to explore observed patterns and relationships, and to make predictions (VC2S2I01)
• Observations can be compared to predictions and the observations of others, which may lead to further questions being identified (VC2S2I05)
• Observations, findings and ideas can be shared with others by using everyday and some scientific vocabulary (VC2S2I06)