MESOZOIC MUSEUM

Share what you've learned about dinosaurs by creating your own museum exhibition at home.

How To Create An Exhibition

WHAT YOU NEED

  • pictures of at least 10 different dinosaurs - either printed out from the Dino Cards on the Ology Web site, or drawn by you
  • construction paper
  • shoe boxes
  • poster board
  • magic markers
  • glue stick
The number 1 written inside a brighty colored, leaf shape.

Pick a topic and title for your exhibition. To help get ideas, explore the Ology Web site and read books about dinosaurs and paleontology.

The number 2 written inside a brighty colored, leaf shape.

Use the art supplies to create drawings, posters, and dioramas to help teach others what you've learned about dinosaurs. Write captions in big letters that explain the exhibition. To help get visitors involved, some of these captions can ask visitors questions about the topic.

The number 3 written inside a brighty colored, leaf shape.

Invite friends and family to your dinosaur exhibition. At the end you may want to give them a quiz you've made up, to see how well your exhibition helped teach others. If the visitors didn't understand an important idea, see if you can improve your exhibition.

BUILDING A DINOSAUR EXHIBITION AT THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Two people look over a life-sized line illustration of a T. Rex's tail bones which is laid out on a large table.

Before skeletal mounts are built, drawings are created to plan the work.

Here, the crew is deciding how to shape the metal supports for T. rex by looking at the life-sized drawing of its tail bones.

A person in a welding mask sits and welds a large piece of metal, which will be part of the spinal support on the skeletal mount for a T. Rex.

Next, the metal supports for the bones are created.

Here's one of the crew members welding and bending the metal supports for T. rex's spine.

A person sits at the base of an Apatosaurus skeletal mount, working on the metal frame where the toe will be placed.

After the metal supports are shaped, all of the bones are added.

In this picture, the toes of Apatosaurus are about to be placed into the metal supports one by one.

Image credits

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Image Credits:

All photos: AMNH