Mike Tuke’s

Footprints What can be learnt from footprints A I 5 min Students are shown dinosaur tracks and are asked to write down the different things that can be learnt from footprint tracks. Height to hip  A P 20 min Students measure the length of their own feet and their height to hip. They then divide foot length into hip height.  It should work out at about a ratio of 1 to 4.  Try it with other animals and you should get the same result.  Now present the students with diagrams or photos of the Laetoli footprints from Tanzania and ask them to work out the height of the adult and child.  Ask them to work out the height of fossil animals from their footprints or casts of them or photos. Dinosaur tracks at your school  A P F 30 min Make a dinosaur trackway at your school so that your students can make deductions about height, type of dinosaur etc from it.  Take a piece of hardboard 45cm square and cut from it the shape of a dinosaur footprint. Use the outline to spray brown paint onto a concrete surface or onto grass in the pattern of a trackway.

Earth Science Activities and Demonstrations