Science // Area
Dinosaurs & Paleontology
Age coverage
Ages 5 to 14
Starts at age 5 // 6 topics
Starting at age 5
Your child is exploring the fascinating world of dinosaurs — learning about different species, understanding what fossils tell us about these ancient creatures, and discovering how scientists study life from long ago.
- Dinosaurs Were Real
Understand that dinosaurs were real animals that lived on Earth a very long time ago and are now extinct — none are alive today
Ages 5 to 7Concept - Fossils & Palaeontologists
Understand that fossils are the remains of ancient living things preserved in rock, and that scientists called palaeontologists study fossils to learn about…
Ages 5 to 7Concept - Famous Dinosaur Species
Recognise and name common well-known dinosaur species: Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, and Brachiosaurus/Diplodocus, describing a basic feature of…
Ages 5 to 7Concept - Plant-Eaters vs Meat-Eaters
Sort dinosaurs into plant-eaters (herbivores) and meat-eaters (carnivores) by looking at clues like tooth shape — flat teeth for plants, sharp teeth for meat
Ages 5 to 7Concept - Dinosaur Sizes
Compare dinosaur sizes to familiar things — some dinosaurs were as tall as a house, others were as small as a chicken — and understand that dinosaurs came in a…
Ages 5 to 7Concept - Real Dinosaurs vs Fiction
Distinguish real dinosaurs from fictional or commonly confused creatures — pterosaurs (flying reptiles) and plesiosaurs (marine reptiles) were not dinosaurs…
Ages 5 to 7Concept
Starts at age 7 // 8 topics
Starting at age 7
Your child is becoming a young paleontologist — learning how fossils form, what they tell us about ancient life, and discovering fascinating facts about dinosaurs and the scientists who study them.
- Fossils Reveal Ancient Environments
Understand that fossils tell us not only about ancient animals but also about ancient environments — for example, marine fossils found on a mountaintop show…
Ages 7 to 9Concept - How Fossils Form
Explain in simple terms how fossils form: an organism dies and is quickly buried in sediment; over millions of years minerals replace the remains and the…
Ages 7 to 9Concept - Fossilised Dinosaur Dung
Describe what coprolites are (fossilised dinosaur dung) and how palaeontologists analyse them to discover what dinosaurs ate, including plant fragments, bones…
Ages 7 to 9Concept - Types of Fossils
Distinguish body fossils (preserved bones, teeth, shells) from trace fossils (footprints, trackways, eggs, burrows, coprolites) and explain what each type can…
Ages 7 to 9Concept - Reading Dinosaur Trackways
Use dinosaur trackways (fossilised footprints) to make inferences about a dinosaur's size, speed, and behaviour — widely spaced prints suggest running, closely…
Ages 7 to 9Method - The Mesozoic Era
Place the three periods of the Mesozoic Era — Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous — in order and understand that different dinosaurs lived in different periods…
Ages 7 to 9Concept - Dinosaurs Around the World
Understand that different dinosaurs lived on different continents and that fossil discoveries around the world show dinosaurs were a global phenomenon, with…
Ages 7 to 9Concept - Mary Anning, Fossil Hunter
Know who Mary Anning was — a pioneering fossil hunter from Lyme Regis, England, who discovered ichthyosaur and plesiosaur skeletons in the early 1800s and…
Ages 7 to 9Concept
Starts at age 8 // 1 topic
Starting at age 8
- Fossils as Evidence
Analyse and interpret data from fossils to provide evidence of organisms and environments that existed long ago
Ages 8 to 11Concept
Starts at age 9 // 8 topics
Starting at age 9
Your child is exploring how scientists study dinosaurs through fossils — learning about dinosaur classification, evolution into birds, extinction events, and how paleontologists uncover and interpret evidence from millions of years ago.
- Changing Scientific Knowledge
Evaluate competing scientific explanations about dinosaurs by weighing fossil evidence — understanding that scientific knowledge changes as new fossils are…
Ages 9 to 11Thinking skill - Reading Cladograms
Read and create simple cladograms (branching diagrams) that show how groups of dinosaurs are related based on shared features, understanding that species…
Ages 9 to 11Representation - Birds Evolved from Dinosaurs
Understand that modern birds evolved from a group of small feathered theropod dinosaurs, using evidence such as the fossil Archaeopteryx, feathered dinosaur…
Ages 9 to 11Concept - Palaeoart & Speculation
Understand that palaeoart — scientific illustrations and models of dinosaurs — is based on fossil evidence but involves informed speculation about skin colour…
Ages 9 to 11Concept - Rock Layers & Relative Dating
Understand that rock layers (strata) form in sequence with the oldest at the bottom and the youngest at the top, and that fossils found in deeper layers are…
Ages 9 to 11Concept - How Palaeontologists Work
Describe how palaeontologists work in the field and lab: prospecting for exposed fossils, careful excavation with hand tools, plaster jacketing for transport…
Ages 9 to 11Method - Dinosaur Hip Groups
Classify dinosaurs into the two major groups based on hip structure: Saurischia (lizard-hipped, including theropods and sauropods) and Ornithischia…
Ages 9 to 11Concept - The K-Pg Extinction Event
Describe the Cretaceous–Palaeogene (K-Pg) extinction event approximately 66 million years ago, including the asteroid impact theory and its evidence (iridium…
Ages 9 to 11Concept
Starts at age 10 // 1 topic
Starting at age 10
- Life Changed Over Time
Recognise that living things have changed over time and that fossils provide information about organisms that inhabited the Earth millions of years ago
Ages 10 to 11Concept
Starts at age 11 // 2 topics
Starting at age 11
- Dinosaur-to-Bird Transition
Trace the evidence for the dinosaur-to-bird transition in depth: feathered theropods from the Liaoning Formation (China), the mix of dinosaur and bird features…
Ages 11 to 13Concept - Radiometric Dating
Explain how radiometric dating works — radioactive isotopes decay at a known rate (half-life), so measuring the ratio of parent to daughter isotope in a rock or…
Ages 11 to 13Concept
Starts at age 12 // 2 topics
Starting at age 12
- Reconstructing Ancient Ecosystems
Reconstruct an ancient ecosystem using multiple independent lines of evidence: isotope analysis of teeth to infer diet and migration, bone histology (growth…
Ages 12 to 14Method - Mass Extinctions in Earth History
Compare the five major mass extinction events in Earth history (End-Ordovician, Late Devonian, End-Permian, End-Triassic, K-Pg), describe proposed kill…
Ages 12 to 14Concept
Starts at age 13 // 1 topic
Starting at age 13
- Megafauna Extinction & De-Extinction
Evaluate the debate over what drove Pleistocene megafauna to extinction — human overkill, climate change, or a combination — using evidence from fossil records…
Ages 13 to 14Thinking skill