To make your zine you will need:
An adaptation is when part of the body becomes specialised for a certain function that means the animal has a better chance of survival in a particular environment.
The Wonderchicken research team have put together a craft activity and information sheets about different types of bird and how they have adapted to the environment they live in.
You will need:
We are keeping these sessions as flexible as possible, so they can support your needs as best as they can. As a general outline, a typical session might include:
Asteriornis maastrichtensis, affectionately known as the Wonderchicken, is among the most exciting bird fossils ever found. It has one of the best-preserved fossil bird skulls in the world, and gives us important insights into the evolutionary origins of modern birds.
It might not look very exciting but flint gravel has a story to tell of a warm chalky sea that covered a lot of England about 90 million years ago. That’s when dinosaur were around although they were not living in this particular sea. Sometimes flint filles the holes made by borrowing animals and sometimes, if we’re lucky it enclosed the remains of sea creatures meaning it is great place to look for fossils.
Scientists use all sorts of different ways to name the new plants, animals and fossils they find.
Two parts - Scientific names usually have two parts, just as people have a first name and a family name.
Latin or Ancient Greek - Often the names use words from Latin or Ancient Greek.
About the Session
This set of activities covers and expands on the Year 5 national curriculum unit "Earth and Space", using objects from the Whipple Museum to explore:
The solar system
Terrestrial, celestial and planetary globes
The earth's movement around the sun
Space science today
Duration: Can be booked as:
About the Session
This set of activities covers aspects of the "animals, including humans" topic and can be adapted for KS1 or KS2, using objects from the Whipple Museum to explore:
How we hear
How we see
Bones in the body
The heart
The brain
Duration: Can be booked as:
It is really unusual for a palaeontologist (scientist who study fossils) to find a complete skeleton with all the bones in the right place. We are more likely to find only a few bones or a jumbled up skeleton.
Putting a skeleton back to together when you know what the animal looks like can be a challenge, but imagine how hard that becomes when there are no more of those creatures alive for you look at. It is a bit like trying to put a jigsaw puzzle together when you don’t have the photo on the box as a guide.
How does burning fossil fuels threaten Antarctic marine life?
This experiment demonstrates the link between increasing carbon dioxide levels and ocean acidification and freshening oceans. Freshwater and more acidic water in the oceans make life harder for Antarctica’s marine animals.
The experiment and video were made by Nick Barrett. Nick is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge Earth Science Department and The British Antarctic Survey investigating the resistance of Antarctic marine species to predicted freshening and lower salinity in the Southern Ocean.
