Audio Transcript

Published: February 4, 2018
APA 7 Citation: Newsome, B. (Host). (2018, February 4). Ep.39 Dinosaurs & AAOD [Audio podcast transcript]. Fizzics Education.
https://www.fizzicseducation.com.au/podcast/fizzicsed/australian-age-of-dinosaurs/

Ben Newsome CF is the recipient of the 2023 UTS Chancellor’s Award for Excellence and a Churchill Fellow. He is a global leader in science communication and the founder of Fizzics Education.

[00:00:00]
Steven Rumbold: As soon as we get down to the rock layer where the bones are going to be, basically we start showing people what is the difference between the rock and the actual fossil bone. As soon as we can start to see where the rock ends and where the fossil begins, if it’s your first day on the dig, we’ll get you straight into digging out that dinosaur bone.

[00:00:16]
Ben Newsome: If you ever want to know what it’s like to be on a real dinosaur dig, now is your chance because this week we’re speaking with Steven Rumbold from the Australian Age of Dinosaurs. Where’s that? It’s in the middle of Queensland, and I tell you what, they are digging more than just a few bones up.

[00:00:28]
Announcer: You’re listening to the Fizzics Ed Podcast. For hundreds of ideas, free experiments and more, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. And now, here’s your host, Ben Newsome.

[00:00:44]
Ben Newsome: Welcome again to another Fizzics Ed Podcast. This week we are speaking with Steven Rumbold. He gets to live the dream. Seriously, just as you heard in the intro, he gets to dig up dinosaur bones, and that is so cool because there are so many friends of mine and science teachers all over the place who would love to get involved in that caper. He gets to do it with all the people at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum.

[00:01:06]
Ben Newsome: If you’ve never heard of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum, you’re certainly going to hear about it today because this place is just booming right in the heart of central Queensland. We’re talking Winton, which is about a two-hour drive west-ish of Longreach in the heart of Queensland. It’s there where they’re setting up a major regional museum all about the dinosaurs of Australia’s history. It’s so cool because they’re working with the graziers and the farmers that surround the district to find Australia’s heritage, what it’s all about.

[00:01:36]
Ben Newsome: Here we get to speak with Steven Rumbold, who is the education coordinator and the laboratory supervisor for the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum. It is such a cool place. A little bit about Steven: he used to work in the museum originally as a tour guide, and he’s worked his way up all the way through the museum in different ways. It’s really clear that he’s passionate about dinosaurs and, more importantly, how to get this museum thriving out in the middle of regional Queensland. Why not find out about not only what the museum’s doing, but how you can get involved? Seriously, you can go on dinosaur digs, and I guess you’d want to hear more about that.

[00:02:14]
Ben Newsome: Steven Rumbold, thank you for coming on the Fizzics Ed Podcast.

[00:02:17]
Steven Rumbold: No worries, Ben. Good to be here.

[00:02:19]
Ben Newsome: Starting the new year, we’ve had a hot summer where we are. As much as I don’t usually start with talking about the weather, where you guys are in central Queensland, it is seriously hot up there.

[00:02:31]
Steven Rumbold: It’s been very, very hot. Over 40 for the last couple of weeks, and very dry as well.

[00:02:37]
Ben Newsome: There’ll be people wondering who on earth we’re speaking with. Steven, what do you do?

[00:02:41]
Steven Rumbold: I’m the laboratory supervisor and education coordinator for the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum in Winton, in Queensland.

[00:02:50]
Ben Newsome: It’s a fantastic spot. I don’t think many people realise that there are genuinely dinosaur specimens in Australia.

[00:02:58]
Steven Rumbold: That’s the thing. In the last 20, 30 years, we’ve started to find a lot of dinosaurs in Australia, and most of the dinosaur bones found in the whole country are coming from right here in Winton.

[00:03:08]
Ben Newsome: Where did this all come from?

[00:03:10]
Steven Rumbold: Originally out here, the history of the dinosaur discovery goes all the way back to the 60s when they first found dinosaur footprints about 110 kilometres outside of town. For our museum here, it only began in 1999 when a local grazier by the name of David Elliot found some funny rocks, and he believed they were dinosaur bones. It turned out he was right, and it’s all sort of grown from there.

[00:03:31]
Ben Newsome: Talk about growing. Starting off with one specimen which got brought to the Queensland Museum, and then a small showcase, and then it grows and grows and grows. You guys have a full-on museum being built out there up on the jump-up in Winton.

[00:03:45]
Steven Rumbold: The museum here has been getting bigger every single year. Since 2009 we set up the dinosaur laboratory here, which has become the biggest and fastest dinosaur preparation lab in the Southern Hemisphere. We also have our collection room up here as well, which has the most Australian dinosaur bones on display anywhere in the world. We’ve also recently opened up a Dinosaur Canyon, which is an area of our local mesa plateau, filled with life-sized bronze statues of the dinosaurs from the area.

[00:04:12]
Ben Newsome: What sort of size dinosaurs are we dealing with here?

[00:04:16]
Steven Rumbold: What we mostly find are the big sauropods, the big long-neck dinosaurs. The ones we’re finding here, our biggest is about 20 metres long from head to tail maximum, which is a pretty big animal at the end of the day.

[00:04:30]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. You’ve got sauropods which are quite the large specimens, especially when you’re talking about out in the Australian bush. Not just the herbivores, you’ve got quite an iconic carnivore in statue form out the front of your visitor centre.

[00:04:47]
Steven Rumbold: Our carnivore is Australovenator wintonensis. He’s the most complete meat-eating dinosaur in the whole country so far discovered. He’s our fearsome meat-eater to go along with our big long-neck gentle giants. Also out in this area too, we’ve found other smaller bones from other types of dinosaurs, and a lot of them are represented at our new Dinosaur Canyon exhibit, which is pretty exciting.

[00:05:11]
Ben Newsome: That new canyon exhibit is stunning. Take us for a walk through what that canyon looks like.

[00:05:17]
Steven Rumbold: Dinosaur Canyon is a new exhibit we opened up just at Easter last year. The idea is people can go down there with a guide, and he leads them through several different galleries where we have a series of statues all together, and the guide will explain what these dinosaurs were like 95, 100 million years ago. We have an area with Australovenator chasing a bunch of smaller dinosaurs, kind of a life-like representation of the dinosaur stampede at Lark Quarry. We have a couple of Kunbarrasaurus, which are the armoured dinosaurs. We also have a little family of flying reptiles, pterosaurs, up on the peaks as well, which is also pretty cool to look at.

[00:05:52]
Ben Newsome: Where did that idea come from? Museums do some fantastic stuff, but being able to get people out of the bricks and mortar and into the outdoors is fantastic.

[00:06:05]
Steven Rumbold: It’s always been the idea out here altogether, to take the whole idea of the museum and do it in a different way, to really make it hands-on and to make it up close and personal. People can also, when they come on our tours, see the behind-the-scenes aspect of it as well, where people can see from just a metre away technicians working on the actual fossils and see these things coming out of the rock for the first time ever. We have a programme where people can actually pay a fee and participate in these programmes too. They can learn how to work on these fossils and actually have a real go at it.

[00:06:35]
Ben Newsome: That is just amazingly cool. There are educators listening to this from all over the globe, and people get to travel, and to be honest, a lot of people in Australia take students around. The fact that you can actually not only get up close and personal with a fossil is one thing, but to actually help with the palaeontological work, the excavation so to speak, that is just stunning. I’d love to know more, and more importantly, how people can get involved in that type of thing.

[00:07:02]
Steven Rumbold: It is a really open-door science policy programme out here. It’s all on the website, how to get involved with working in our laboratory. Another option is people can go on the dinosaur digs, which is really unique. There’s not many places in the world where anyone over 18 can pay a fee to come and participate in this sort of a programme, and see this stuff coming out of the ground and working with the palaeontologists, which is really exciting too.

[00:07:27]
Ben Newsome: That’s fantastic. The fee itself would go towards supporting what Australian Age of Dinosaurs is doing. It is a non-profit centre, very much for Australia, which is a fantastic spot. Describe what it’s like to be on a dig. Obviously you’re digging for dinosaur bones, but just describe the process.

[00:07:45]
Steven Rumbold: For us out here, the way we find our dinosaur bones is usually it starts with one of the local graziers or local landowners. They actually are usually the people who find these fragments of bone on the surface of the soil, and then come and let us know. We go out and investigate a little bit further, and if we think it’s going to be a good one, we’ll organise a good time with the local landowner to head out there and excavate. That means we’re going to have us laboratory guys there, there’ll also be the Elliot family there, and official palaeontologists from across Australia to go out there with this team of people. Some of them will have done it before, some it’ll be their very first time. We go out there and start trying to excavate all the bones, just like you see on TV, really.

[00:08:26]
Ben Newsome: If you’re absolutely brand new to this, you’ve just got to be over 18 and obviously of physical condition to be able to do this. What sort of training on site do you give them? What sort of things can someone turning up for the first time expect to be doing?

[00:08:40]
Steven Rumbold: They get involved in everything. At the end of the day, we start with the heavy equipment, which will be the loaders and mini diggers, but that’s driven by the Elliot family, the guys with the licences. As soon as we get down to the rock layer where the bones are going to be, basically we start showing people what is the difference between the rock and the actual fossil bone. As soon as we can start to see where the rock ends and where the fossil begins, if it’s your first day on the dig, we’ll get you straight into digging out that dinosaur bone. Straight away you’re going to be the very first person to ever see this bone come out of the rock.

[00:09:11]
Ben Newsome: Which is outstanding. One of the things I actually referenced the weather right at the very start of this is because you are in central Queensland. I’m guessing early January is not the time to be doing this.

[00:09:21]
Steven Rumbold: Definitely not. We definitely wait for the cooler months of the year to go out into the field digging these things up. But the work in the laboratory here in the big shed, we’ve got lovely nice big air-conditioned fans, so we can do the work in the lab year-round, luckily.

[00:09:33]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. You’ve got a lot of work to do. If anyone’s ever been out to those sheds, you’ll see racks upon racks of casts filled with bones that you haven’t quite got to because you’ve got such volume of stuff to get through.

[00:09:47]
Steven Rumbold: That’s the thing. When it comes to the excavation, we only do that for probably about three weeks out of the year because we’ve already got about a 10-year backlog of Australian dinosaur bones sitting in our shed.

[00:09:58]
Ben Newsome: It’s the sort of thing, I was lucky enough to travel across to the Royal Tyrrell Museum over in Alberta, Canada. They’ve got the same situation, with all these jackets of bones which they’ve just got to get to at some point. Is this a common thing across museums as a whole for dinosaur specimens?

[00:10:16]
Steven Rumbold: Really just museums in general. Most museums do have extensive collections behind the scenes that no one ever gets to see. So usually there is a sort of backlog. Luckily with the dinosaur bones, that’s why we’re only digging that small amount of time every year, so our backlog doesn’t become too overwhelming. Because we’ve opened this up to the public every year, our lab’s procedures get quicker and faster as more and more people get involved. That’s really how we’ll eventually make up that gap pretty quickly in the next few years.

[00:10:44]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. I’ve been there and you’ve got teams of people going hard at it with wen-pens and that sort of thing, yeah?

[00:10:51]
Steven Rumbold: The tools we all work with out here, they’re all pneumatic tools, so they all run on the air compressor. Air chisels are the bigger ones, but the air scribes or wen-pens is another one we use. They’re the more common ones for the final touching. There’s also smaller tools and a variety of other techniques as well, but really just all with the air compressor pneumatic drills, and that’s really what we use.

[00:11:11]
Ben Newsome: One of the things that Australian Age of Dinosaurs is very much about is research, but also it’s about involving the community itself. Obviously yourself heading up the education side of things, I know that there’s big plans for really getting involved in the education side of things. What have you got in mind?

[00:11:29]
Steven Rumbold: The education side of things, we’re trying to get bigger and better as well, because we really want to try and engage the students out here, particularly in central Queensland, to get involved with the scientific history of this place, to really get them involved as well. We do a lot of that sort of work when the school groups come up here to do the tours.

[00:11:47]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. What’s it like with the school tours themselves? They tend to be like 10 kids, 20 kids, 30 kids. What sort of ages and volumes do you tend to see come up to the mesa?

[00:11:59]
Steven Rumbold: We get a lot of variety there too. We’ll get some groups that will come from the coast and be really big school groups, some will be quite small groups, like the School of the Air kids might come up one year. It always varies, the ages and everything else. That’s also reflected in our programmes. We’ve got a bit of variety there to try and engage the different age groups that come through.

[00:12:19]
Ben Newsome: What’s really cool about the site itself is you’ve got the visitor centre and the labs up on the jump-up, this almost like an iron outcropping in some ways sitting above a plateau. They almost act as islands for plant life and animal life. Is there much consideration into not just the dinosaurs, but actually just the biology?

[00:12:44]
Steven Rumbold: With the environmental side of things up here as well, these mesa plateaus, or jump-ups as they’re locally known, are very different in terms of the flora and fauna. We do collect a lot of that data in our “Dinosaur to Dunnarts” programme, where we’re trying to get an idea of what sort of species of plants and animals are in this area, particularly focused on the jump-ups. There’s already been several new subspecies found of some insects, and also some other very rare things, like some very rare marsupials. It is very unique, and it’s something to keep an eye on, and we’d love to get the kids more involved with that too in the future.

[00:13:17]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. What’s your favourite lesson to run with students?

[00:13:21]
Steven Rumbold: We’ve got a couple of different ones we have up here, and it kind of depends on what age the kids are, what they sort of get into more is the one you tend to enjoy a bit more when you’re up here doing it. We do let them, if they’re old enough, do some work in the laboratory here to have a go at it that way. We also have, particularly for the little kids, a replica dig site. We’ve made a big dinosaur leg and we’ve buried it halfway up the jump-up cliff. The kids get a little high-vis vest and a bucket of tools and off we go to go dig up the dinosaur bones for the day.

[00:13:49]
Ben Newsome: I’d love that.

[00:13:51]
Steven Rumbold: Another thing we do is make replicas with the students. There seems to be a big one from the preps to year 12s, even the teachers and parents get involved with it. We’re basically able to show them making replicas of an Australovenator claw, which they actually get to paint and take home with them. For some reason the kids really get engaged with this, and it also allows us to discuss why museums make replicas and such.

[00:14:12]
Ben Newsome: I tell you what, for some reason they get involved? More than that, Australovenator‘s claws aren’t small.

[00:14:18]
Steven Rumbold: Definitely not. They’re probably about 25, 30 centimetres long from end to end. They’re very, very big claws. They’re very nasty weapons.

[00:14:26]
Ben Newsome: They are. I was just sitting here, obviously we’re talking into a microphone, but just opposite me are a bunch of bananas. I’m just looking at the bananas themselves going, you know what, those Cavendish bananas aren’t that much different in size.

[00:14:38]
Steven Rumbold: He would have had two claws that big and one slightly smaller one, but a bit of a vicious fella. Particularly with the kids, they like the sharp claws and the big teeth, so it seems to be a big hit with the kids to make one of those to take home.

[00:14:50]
Ben Newsome: More than enough, absolutely. Undoubtedly there’ll be people listening in who would be more than keen to get involved, and actually more than just turn up, to actually get involved and become a palaeontologist. What are the steps to get involved in a museum like yours?

[00:15:07]
Steven Rumbold: Everyone’s got very different backgrounds. Sometimes it’s not the academic side of things that’s as important as it is wanting to do this hands-on sort of work, because that’s a very different skillset sometimes. Out here you can spend all day working on a fossil and you might not even remove a bit of rock the size of a five-cent piece. But when you see that little bit of dinosaur bone for the first time, you’re the first person in the world to see it. If that gets you excited and keeps you going, that’s the kind of people we want here in our laboratory.

[00:15:31]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. Actually if you’re really good at jigsaw puzzles… I remember having a fantastic time when I visited a couple of years ago, for three days of my week there, I sat down with an elderly couple trying to piece together a shin bone at the time, and we spent several days and we sort of got halfway there. It’s trying to fit all the fragments into one little section. It’s like a three-dimensional puzzle. It’s really good for the brain.

[00:16:00]
Steven Rumbold: Three-dimensional jigsaws is another part of it too, because sometimes these bones are completely shattered when we find them. They’re pretty complicated jigsaws because there’s no picture on the box and you don’t know if you’ve got all the pieces.

[00:16:11]
Ben Newsome: That’s where a lot of the respect comes in. I suppose when you look at antiquity, when you look at the old dinosaur drawings of what people thought they would look like, I always refer to Iguanodon where people often think that what we know now are thumb spikes, they put it on its nose because they knew what a rhinoceros looked like. It means that palaeontologists have got a bit of a tough job.

[00:16:33]
Steven Rumbold: It can be sometimes because really all we have is the bones. But now it is getting easier because there have been such big discoveries in Australia and overseas, we can see more of these things a lot more clearly. It’s not just the individual discoveries now here and there, we can see the links between dinosaurs we find even in Australia to ones that they find in South America, and ones from South America compared to ones in other parts of the world as well. It’s that whole thing now, it’s not just a localised science of just one or two people, it’s really a palaeontological community where all these ideas can be shared. That’s why these things are becoming more and more accurate.

[00:17:12]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. That’s why science is a revolving process. It just doesn’t end. I agree. That’s just how it is. I know that people are thinking, “Hang on, central Queensland, I’m down in Victoria or I’m in California, I’m not getting there anytime soon.” What I’m really excited about is that you’re looking at putting in video conferencing to be able to connect with learners all over the place. Now that’s got to be awesome.

[00:17:38]
Steven Rumbold: We’re really hoping to get that up and running, fingers crossed this year, maybe next year. We’re really excited to get onto this teleconferencing so we can start to spread the idea of Australian dinosaurs further and further afield, because we are so far away from everything. It’d be great particularly for the schools and for people in the general public who are interested in dinosaurs to be able to see this stuff, even if they can’t make it up here. Of course we’d rather they come all the way to Winton to see it, but we do want to get that further educational experience out there.

[00:18:05]
Ben Newsome: You guys are doing a really good job right from the almost start, even with the journal. The journal that gets produced is really thorough and filled with some real personal stories about digging stuff up. How can they get that?

[00:18:20]
Steven Rumbold: The journal as well, you can buy it in the shop here if you happen to be close enough, but we can also do it all through the online shop now as well. If you go onto australianageofdinosaurs.com, that will tell you all the things you need to know. There’s even membership deals and everything else. The journal is another great thing, it keeps you up to date in what the museum’s been doing this year, what we’re looking forward to doing in the future, and of course discoveries from not just here but from experts all across Australia in all the different fields of palaeontology contribute to that magazine. It’s another really good read if you’re keen to learn a little bit more.

[00:18:55]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. Is it right in saying… I vaguely remember, have you got like a “Million Year Membership” or something like that?

[00:19:03]
Steven Rumbold: A programme where basically you’ll get the journal for life, and you also get all sorts of discounts in the shop and tickets and all the rest of it, and get invited to any of the dinners and fundraisers and stuff we do. That’s just another big thing as well to help the museum and to help people get involved.

[00:19:18]
Ben Newsome: Awesome. Something I always ask all of our guests who come onto this is advice. Advice for people that either want to get involved or what they’re doing. If you had to put your hat on, just say you had a number of teachers in front of you and they were just asking, “How do I teach about ancient history?”, and we’re talking properly ancient history here, “How do we teach about what dinosaurs were like?”, what are some suggestions that teachers could be doing from their own classrooms, in their own spaces?

[00:19:50]
Steven Rumbold: That’s something we’re really looking forward to as well. We’re currently developing an Australian palaeontology for dummies if you will, which hopefully will be able to be purchased by schools to help teach this sort of stuff in the schools with lesson plans and activities. In the meantime, there’s a lot of information out there, you’ve just got to really want to look for it.

[00:20:11]
Steven Rumbold: For information, our website’s great for the dinosaurs in this area. We’ve got really accessible summaries written about each of their discoveries and what these dinosaurs are like. It’s written by one of our palaeontologists, but it’s not written in the very high-level jargon like you’d expect. It is a very accessible version. We’re hoping to get more and more of that going as well. With any of this sort of stuff, the best thing you can do is learn as much as you can about it, and if you can explain it to the kids in your classroom, you’re going to be able to explain it to anyone. That’s really the best thing I can do for it.

[00:20:45]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. If I had to throw my two cents in, I like the fact that you said about dinosaurs in your area. You refer to the dinosaurs in South America and North America and all over the place. If you’ve got local dinosaurs in your own district, teach about them. I know that we often want to refer to the ones that are in Jurassic Park, which by the way is one of my more favourite movies, but we do have our local endemic species as well.

[00:21:09]
Steven Rumbold: That’s it. There is 20 individual species that have been discovered in Australia and have been found nowhere else in the world already. And there’s a lot more to come. Pretty much every state has found at least one dinosaur. Tasmania and the Northern Territory have found fossils from the Mesozoic, from the age of the dinosaurs, just nothing that’s actually a dinosaur yet. They’ve found some little marine reptiles and other plants.

[00:21:34]
Ben Newsome: That’s unreal. That’s the beauty about it, is that you’ve only really just started. The 1960s the first specimen sort of got found, and 20, 25 years ago you guys started going with Australian Age of Dinosaurs. Now look at you. It makes me wonder just what is out in that wide brown land of Australia.

[00:21:53]
Steven Rumbold: That’s it, no one’s really been looking before. The first official dinosaur discovery in all of Australia was actually all the way back in 1903 in Victoria. It took a long time to really start to find a lot. For a long time too, it was just an academic secret. These things have been discovered but no one really knew much about it. In the last 20, 30 years, that’s when there’s been a real concerted effort not just here but in other parts of Australia to start finding this stuff and really communicating it to the public as well.

[00:22:21]
Ben Newsome: I bet. That’s very much where the education team at AAOD comes in. That’s just awesome. Thank you very much for your time, Steven, for popping in. I know you’ve got a lot coming on. You’re in the middle of winter, the proper touring season in the holidays. I’d imagine you’ve got more than your fair share of caravans coming up the mesa.

[00:22:38]
Steven Rumbold: Even though it’s still hot up here, we’re still getting a fair few people through the doors, we always do. People travelling around, dinosaurs are something that always grabs the attention, and as soon as they come in near Winton, they all want to come up and have a look.

[00:22:49]
Ben Newsome: Absolutely. If you’re wondering where Winton is, it’s not that far from Longreach really. If you had to jump in the car and drive to Longreach right now, what are we looking at?

[00:23:00]
Steven Rumbold: Two hours max, that’s if you’re dawdling pretty well.

[00:23:04]
Ben Newsome: There you go. You can drop into Longreach, check out the Qantas museum out there, the Stockman’s Hall of Fame and all that type of stuff, and you got a great river cruise out there too. Then come out and see the dinosaur country, head out to Lark Quarry, it would be fantastic.

[00:23:19]
Steven Rumbold: That’s the thing. If you’re going to come all the way out here, you may as well spend a couple of days and do it all properly.

[00:23:23]
Ben Newsome: Exactly. I’ll leave you with it. I know you’ve got people, undoubtedly you’ve got tours coming up pretty soon. Much appreciated, and we’ll put all those links about AAOD on the show notes. Have a fantastic time and I’m hoping to be up there soon.

[00:23:38]
Announcer: This is the Fizzics Ed Podcast. We’re all about science, ed tech and more. To see 100 fun free experiments you can do with your class, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. That’s physics spelled F I Z Z I C S and click 100 free experiments.

[00:23:58]
Ben Newsome: Well there you go. That was Steven Rumbold. He’s from the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum and I’ll tell you what, the place is thriving. There’s a visitor centre and that dinosaur stampede down the valley, very cool, and I cannot wait until the main museum gets built. Something else that came out of this interview which is really interesting and is a testament to how science truly works. Remember, Steven mentioned there are 20 dinosaur species known around Australia. However, when he sent through his bio to me to write up our blog as we always do, he mentioned that there’s now 21 species of dinosaur.

[00:24:25]
Ben Newsome: Gotta love how things just move on. We now know that there’s this tiny little herbivore, this little tiny dinosaur about the size of a turkey that was found near Cape Otway in 2005 and has now been formally identified as Diluvicursor pickeringi. This tiny little thing, and by the way, nothing like saying a Latin name and getting it wrong, sorry to any scientists if I say it the wrong way. What this really shows is that science just keeps on moving. We keep making discoveries and making connections. That’s really what the beauty of science truly is.

[00:24:55]
Ben Newsome: What did you get out of this? I’m really hoping that you’re considering going up to Winton in Australia’s winter. I know we’ve got a lot of people listening overseas. In August and June, July, that’s when it gets a bit colder up there and that’s when you can actually handle the heat. Winton is a near semi-arid desert. It’s not far away from it. It’s quite cold during the winter, but I tell you what, it’s really hot during the summer. If you want to go to a dinosaur dig, you really can do this. You just got to get yourself up there, and all the money that goes into getting you there and getting your accommodation and paying to make it happen, goes straight towards this non-profit museum to help build it.

[00:25:30]
Ben Newsome: You really are doing true science in amongst the palaeontologists themselves. Truly, if you can get up there, it’s worth it. I’ve done it, and I’m going up there in a couple of weeks again to help them out with the video conferencing stuff as well. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

[00:25:46]
Ben Newsome: Speaking of video conferencing, not everyone can get out to the central Queensland area. Soon you’ll be able to connect with the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum through their distance education unit. It’s a new thing. It’s so much new that’s not even built yet. But trust me, when it comes, it’s going to be worth it. Just keep an eye on that, it’s well worth your time.

[00:26:22]
Ben Newsome: One of the things I want to stress again is if you’re teaching about dinosaurs to the kids in front of you, or the adults, whoever you’re dealing with, please consider talking about the dinosaurs that are in your regional area. It gives a lot of context. It means that people realise that there’s more than just the 20 species mentioned on Jurassic Park, there are so many more. Maybe what you could do is get the kids to look at what’s different or similar about the dinosaurs in their area and compare them to the ones in North America. If you don’t have dinosaurs in your area, maybe that’s a really good question for the students to ask.

[00:26:42]
Ben Newsome: Actually, why are they doing that? Why don’t you go and find out what they know about dinosaurs as a whole? What is the difference between a dinosaur and a flying reptile? What’s the difference between a dinosaur and what’s in the marine environment? What makes a dinosaur a dinosaur? That’s a great place to start.

[00:26:56]
Announcer: Thanks for listening to the Fizzics Ed Podcast. Love your science? We do too. Here’s this episode’s education tip of the week. Grab your pencil and get ready to make some notes.

[00:27:07]
Ben Newsome: I feel after all this that we really should do an experiment where kids can get involved in making their own fossil, making their own print, their impression that they get to take home. It’s so easy to do and you don’t need to get fancy stuff, you just gotta go to the local shop. What do you need? You’re going to need to get some flour, some salt, a mixing bowl, some coffee. Seriously, you’re going to need some coffee of all things. Don’t we all need some coffee? But this time you definitely need it in the experiment. You need something to press into, like a shell, their hand, something like that. Probably some aluminium foil and you’re going to need some water nearby too.

[00:27:45]
Ben Newsome: Let’s start off. You’re going to need your bowl and you’re going to make some pizza dough effectively. That’s pretty much what we’re making. Get your flour, say a cup of flour. If you’re doing the whole class you can get way more than that, but we’re going to do a small batch so we get the ratios right. Get yourself a cup of plain flour, and you’re going to mix half a cup of salt through it. I know that sounds like a bucket load of salt, but the reason why is firstly it stops people eating too much of it, don’t eat your experiment kids. More importantly what it does is it helps to exclude water later on once it’s dry. More importantly than that, it’ll stop bacteria and mould growing on it. You really do need a bucket load of salt, in this case half a cup of salt.

[00:28:24]
Ben Newsome: You got your cup of plain flour, you’ve got your half a cup of salt, and you mix it up quite a bit. Set it to one side whilst you get some water and you’re going to get some coffee or some coffee grounds. You’re looking about getting half a cup give or take. Once you’ve done that, you’re going to mix that water through your floury, salty mixture, and just add little bits at a time because it’s so easy to make this way too wet, and you’re going to need that.

[00:28:50]
Ben Newsome: I personally don’t mind adding some oil, like canola oil, to help the flour stick together because if we’re going to make a pizza dough let’s do it properly. What you’re looking for is something that looks like something you could bake with, and it should be slightly brown coloured because we’re going to be making fossils and fossils are kind of brownish looking rocks.

[00:29:10]
Ben Newsome: Once you’ve got this kneady dough ball of yours, you get the student in front of you, to make a small amount in their hand and you’re going to press a shell or whatever it is they want to make a fossil out of straight into the dough. Once you’ve done that, you place the dough with the impression in it onto a piece of aluminium foil and place it out in the sun. Over time it will harden, and you’ve got a simple fossil impression. Kids love it, and let’s be honest, so do I.

[00:29:39]
Announcer: You’re listening to the Fizzics Ed Podcast. Why don’t you book us for a science show or workshop at your school? We love seeing students get excited about science, and you will too. Go to fizzicseducation.com.au and click on schools for more info.

[00:29:56]
Ben Newsome: One thing about regional Queensland is it has so much to offer. Last week I got to speak with Craig McGroggan from Reef HQ who’s been teaching science to kids about the reef and beyond for quite a while.

[00:30:09]
Craig McGroggan: We’re getting these study abroad groups, they’re coming in and they’re doing citizen science in our tank and then out into the field. I get a lot of enjoyment about that. I think it’s largely to do with it’s a two-way learning experience. Many of these tertiary students that are visiting us are postgraduates. They’re in professions similar to ours over there in the US, so there’s a lot of interchange of information and ideas. It’s tremendously rewarding to work with these people over an extended period of time. Not just a 90-minute programme or a 60-minute programme, but multiple days really get to know them.

[00:30:51]
Ben Newsome: It’s definitely worth checking out last week’s episode as we spoke with Craig from Reef HQ. They’ve got a lot to offer, they’re up in Townsville. Wouldn’t it be a great trip to go to Winton to the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum and then head on over to Reef HQ to go check out the reef. Brilliant tour, and I reckon it’d be a great holiday too.

[00:31:09]
Announcer: This is the Fizzics Ed Podcast.

[00:31:11]
Ben Newsome: And that just about brings us to the end of yet another Fizzics Ed Podcast. Next week is that promised episode with Latitude Group Travel. We are looking at some seriously interesting science tours for students. It’s really worth checking this out. It’s a big thing and we’re really proud to be involved with this too.

[00:31:27]
Ben Newsome: Until then, keep making your science classes awesome, no matter what you’re doing. Make them intriguing and enthralling and as engaging as possible. You’ve been listening to me, Ben Newsome from Fizzics Education, and you’ve been on the Fizzics Ed Podcast. I will catch you next week.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is the primary site for dinosaur discoveries in Australia?
The majority of Australian dinosaur fossils are discovered in Winton, Central Queensland. The Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum is situated on a large mesa plateau, known locally as a “jump-up,” approximately two hours west of Longreach.

What are some of the specific dinosaur species found at the Winton site?
The region is famous for large Sauropods (long-necked herbivores) that can reach up to 20 metres in length. It is also home to Australovenator wintonensis, which is the most complete meat-eating dinosaur ever discovered in Australia. Other finds include the armoured Kunbarrasaurus and various species of Pterosaurs.

How can the general public get involved with the museum’s work?
The museum operates an “open-door” science policy. Members of the public over the age of 18 can pay a fee to participate in actual dinosaur digs alongside palaeontologists. Additionally, the museum offers laboratory programmes where volunteers can learn to use pneumatic tools, such as wen-pens, to help prepare fossils by removing surrounding rock.

Why does the museum have such a significant backlog of fossil specimens?
Because the Winton area is so rich in heritage, the museum has already accumulated approximately a 10-year backlog of dinosaur bones. While formal excavations only take place for about three weeks a year to avoid overwhelming the facility, the laboratory work continues year-round to process the massive volume of specimens recovered.

What educational programmes does the museum offer for schools?
The museum provides a variety of hands-on activities, including replica dig sites for younger children and fossil preparation sessions for older students. They also run a “Dinosaur to Dunnarts” programme which focuses on the unique biology and environmental history of the local mesa plateaus.

Extra thought ideas to consider

The Importance of Endemic Species in Science Education:
While many students are familiar with famous North American dinosaurs through popular media, there is significant educational value in focusing on local, endemic species. Educators might consider how teaching the specific palaeontological history of one’s own region can create a deeper sense of connection to the land and a better understanding of global biodiversity and evolutionary links.

Citizen Science and the Future of Research:
The Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum relies heavily on local graziers and public volunteers to find and prepare fossils. This model suggests that the future of large-scale scientific research may depend increasingly on community involvement. Discuss how “citizen science” can be integrated into school curriculums to show students that they can contribute to real-world scientific discovery regardless of their professional background.

Leveraging Technology to Bridge Regional Gaps:
With the museum developing video conferencing and distance education units, there is a clear opportunity to bring remote, regional science to a global audience. Consider how digital excursions can be used to provide equitable access to high-quality science experiences for students in metropolitan or international locations who cannot physically visit remote field sites.