Thursday, February 15, 2007 Older Editions

Fun with fossils

By April Guilmet

Dragonflies the size of hawks, football-sized dinosaur eggs, and fossilized dinosaur dung were among the topics of discussion during Monday's "Having Fun with Dinosaurs and Fossils" presentation at High Plain Elementary School.

Led by Arlington-based paleontologist Paulette Morin, kindergarten students learned all about dinosaurs and even got to hold a fossil or two. The school's third-graders attended a similar program earlier in the day.

"Millions of years ago, the world was a warm, lush, tropical place," Morin told the students as she adjusted her wide-brimmed safari hat. Some of those dinosaurs, she said, were as tall as two-story home. "But some were as small as kittens," Morin said.

All three of the school's kindergarten classes held actual fossils, which were spread out on several tables. Magnifying glasses were provided to encourage the children to take a closer look.

Morin, vice president of the New England Paleontological Society, urged her pint-sized audience to try some dinosaur hunting of their own, adding that many of the tools she uses can be found in most households.

"This is a dirty job," Morin said as she held up a pair of gloves, a magnifying glass, goggles and a small shovel.

"But don't put fossils in your pocket when you find them. They break very easily," she warned.

She held up a fossilized fish, which she herself found in Wyoming.

"You should always carry a notebook and a pen. Write down where you found it," Morin said.

"What do you think these are?" Morin asked the students, as she passed around two cluster-shaped rocks. Among the guesses were brains, lava and meteors. Those guesses were incorrect.

"These are everybody's favorite fossils," Morin laughed. "What you just touched is fossilized dinosaur droppings."

After millions of years spent in the ground, these fossils are now simply rocks, she emphasized.

"We use these to tell us about what dinosaurs ate," Morin said.

The program was sponsored by the school's Parent Teacher Organization through the Andover Coalition for Education, said Joann Caveney, one of the school's academic enrichment coordinators.

Caveney said Morin typically visits the school once every year.

The school's third-grade class also learned about rocks, which ties into the students' MCAS tests, Caveney said.