I know that's a skill that is taught in reading but can be a bit more difficult to understand in science. The TKI science capabilities website (www.scienceonline.tki.org.nz) talks a bit about the first capability Gather and Interpret Data by talking about the gathering data as directly observable or measurable whilst the interpreting data bit is making meaning of the observation. As soon as children start to explain something, it's usually an inference!
Anyway this week's podcast was about the art of drawing dinosaurs and looked at how they were first drawn which was as big, cumbersome creatures that never moved. In fact one picture I was looking at showed two dinosaurs comatose as well as biting one another!
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/welcome-to-jurassic-art/ |
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/welcome-to-jurassic-art/ |
http://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2013/01/skin-deep-one-skin-fits-all-approach-to.html |
The podcast and a couple of the articles talk about what we might think modern animals may look like to the future paleontologist -there won't be an elephant trunk fossil, camel hump or the blubber of a whale to show them what these creatures really looked like. In fact how do we know the dinosaurs didn't have a big hump?
I love the picture of swans they draw as I already think of them as violent creatures!
One has speared a tadpole, neither have feathers or wings as they didn't fossilize...
The articles are quite interesting and I think this would make a great reading activity for the children. If I was to do it, I would draw the science out of this... So what are we learning about science? My daughter knows I'm quite the critiquer and has become one herself. Recently, she watched a BBC dinosaur clip and paused it to tell me that the commentator was talking about the behaviour and appearance of the dinosaur as if it was true rather then "We believe that these particular dinosaurs played guitar late at night whilst wearing sombreros" (and I so want to find this as a picture!). This is what we want for our children: to learn how media report science, how science actually is, and what observation and inference are.
Do the inferences mean that the artist is wrong? Not necessarily, but we need to explain why we have drawn particular features. Although I remember the older dinosaur books having some pretty exotic colours, I never really thought it was legit... I sort of thought they'd be more camouflaged and I didn't think trees would be those colours. Mind you, they might have been anyway! I do remember that early efforts to model the iguanadon were completely wrong due to putting the fossil together incorrectly -could this still happen today?
So, have a read of some articles, look at some of the pictures, have a go at drawing the creature that would fit a particular skeleton (like a whale, camel or rabbit) without sharing what the creature is and then get the children to justify their efforts. They might even like to have a go at drawing what a dinosaur might have looked!
Here's some of the places I went:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/dinosaurs-and-the-anti-shrink-wrapping-revolution/
http://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2013/01/skin-deep-one-skin-fits-all-approach-to.html
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/welcome-to-jurassic-art/ (This is the podcast one -I would certainly recommend it for the children to listen to as it is a safe one with some interesting ideas... and I like the idea of students listening to podcasts!).
I had to finish with this picture just because it looks lovely! Apparently most art of dinosaurs usually had them eating or fighting and this was one of the first pictures of them sleeping (although I'm wondering if they might have slept standing...).
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/all-yesterdays-book-and-launch-event/ |
So enjoy!
Keep on sciencing!
Paul
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