By Alex, Year 10 Trying to find information on fossils and extinction, we took a half-day visit to the Great North Museum: Hancock. One of our goals was to see how fossils are formed and what they are. We used Instagram to share our photos with Mr Thompson. These were on fossils and how they were formed. After we did this task, we had to find information on extinction such as: what it is and what can cause mass extinction.
We walked to the museum and, once we got there we split up into groups of two or three and tried to find the information that we needed to find. As we pushed open the doors to the entrance of the museum we were all confronted with animals seen today. Since they weren’t on the agenda we quickly walked by and visited the area we would need most; the dinosaur area. It was filled with fossils, models and real animals. Some groups saw a particularly fascinating animal, the Mexican Axolotl. This animal always stays young unless iodine is forced into them or if it is placed in its food. This is because they have evolved so that their digestive system does not have iodine and so it is unable to grow.
After the fossil hunt, we concentrated on the extinction side of things. We were looking at the information given of the fossil which gave us the answer to our questions. After we had finished our tasks, we were allowed to visit the other parts of the museum. The more popular part of the museum was the snakes and, of course the café. Before we left we were able to buy some things from the museum gift shop. After leaving the museum we all felt that we had learned something that day.