The Day the Dinosaurs Invaded Absecon

This past Wednesday about 40 local children, their parents, and camp counselors took to the Absecon schools gym to see the return of Dinoman and his dinosaurs. For 45 minutes, kids ohhed and ahhed as they learned fascinating facts about dinosaurs and prehistoric times.

Take a look at what we learned today:

• Triceratops made blood in their horns.
• Octopus have green blood.
• We don't know much about dinosaur blood because the bacteria from the inside of dinosaurs cause decay that keeps us from learning about it.
• Despite all we know about prehistoric times, scientists still have a hard time determining where water first came from.
• Dinosaurs' bodies had to change over time to adapt to their changing environments.
• Dinosaur eggs are not as huge as you might expect them to be. If they were, the shell would be too thick for air to get in and dinosaur to get out. Dinosaur eggs are typically the size of potatoes.
• Dinosaur fossils have been hard to find because often their remains would be eaten or broken up and washed away. It is rare that they would be covered well enough to keep the fossil intact.
• The first dinosaurs were discovered in Haddonfield, New Jersey.
• A 12-year-old girl was one of the first to discover a dinosaur fish while on a beach trip.
• The hips of a dinosaur can be 7 times wider than thier shoulders.
• Dinosaurs could live to 200 years old.

Not only did Dinoman keep things lively by infusing humor for the adults and kids into his presentation, but kids got involved in so many other ways as well.

• They touched fossils like a triceratops horn, dinosaur poop, a T-rex tooth, claws, and other items.
• They learned about how friction works by rubbing their hands together and how that friction attracts and repels objects on our planet.
• Volunteers got involved demonstrating friction, displaying the Clothesline of time to teaching their peers about the eras and what animals lived during each one:  Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic, balancing themselves on chairs, showing the movement of continents across our globe, pretending to be T-rexs.
• Dinoman demonstrated how fossils are made.

Wednesday's Dinoman program was sponsored by the Absecon Library. It was free and open to all children. Next week, their summer program will return to the Absecon Library with a FREE puppet program at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.