Excursion Report:
Manhatten, NY- All day:
Dr Holtz and Dr. Merck both talked about creatures that used to roam the Earth. Dr. Holtz talked about dinosaurs. He explained that dinosaurs have legs underneath them and hip sockets. He also mentioned that dinosaurs are a group of organisms that are descendents of the plateosaurus and iguanodon. I learned that at first, dinosaurs were only four feet long and they could only walk on their hind legs. However, when rain decreased around the world new types of trees evolved which allowed for herbivores to exist. He explained how we have hips like lizards. A few more facts that were mentioned is that the struthiomimus grasps its prey. Also, there was a pair of arms and shoulder blades found in Argentina. And in 2014 scientists had the rest of the skeleton and saw that it had duck bill, short feet, and a hump on its back. Professor Holtz also mentioned that t-rexes are more hunched over and don't stand up straight like people originally thought. Because of this, the big t-rex in the hall is standing wrong. Some specific concepts and discoveries Professor Holtz talked about are that counter currents make it easier to breathe and that's why dinosaurs got so large. Dinosaurs chewed inside of their body and not with their mouths. Also, you can cut dinosaur bones and each ring in it counts a year of life. Coelophysis are more agile than early dinosaurs because it had bones in its belly. At first it was thought that it was cannibalism but a graduate student found that the bones were crocodile relative bones. From the fast moving predators, greater things evolved. The elosaurus and tyrannosaurus were thought to be of the same branch. They found that tyrannosaurus are closer to birds than elosaurus because of their narrow feet. He said that the bigger one is a good endurance runner while the smaller ones are very fast. Another discovery was that birds aren't related to dinosaurs, they are descendents of them, so birds are dinosaurs. Also, contrary to popular belief, the Velociraptor skull is extremely small. Another interesting discovery was that Dracorex hogwartsia means dragon king of Hogwarts. But this is inaccurate because this isn't what the dinosaur actually looks like throughout its life. Something I found fascinating is that what's currently in the deserts of Mongolia was in the desert when the velociraptor was around. Another cool thing is that scientists have all birth stages of protoceratops. As a self guided tour I looked at the space exhibit. The exhibit said that the universe is expanding. Also, that the universe is made up of mostly hydrogen and helium. A few facts I learned were: for every light year light travels light travels a year, Venus has a runaway greenhouse effect that makes its surface hot enough to melt lead, and stars are powered by fusion. Another cool fact is that at the star's core hydrogen atoms combine to form helium. Then, fusion releases the energy that works its way to the surface to make stars shine. In addition, high mass stars are short lived. Professor Merck talked about vertebrates. He mentioned that jaws came from evolution and that they are connected to the brain case. He explained that redfin fish have parallel fins and that half of the fish today are redfin fish. Something interesting is that akintostatin have a full slit and breathe water, but it has fingers and toes so it is not like a fish. A key takeaway was that there are no vertebrae with no jaws. Also, amphibian eggs are gelatinous and exchange gasses in the water freely. I also learned that turtle shells have a composite structure and that lots of evolution happened for turtles to be able to tick their heads into their shells. Also, rauisuchids are evolutionary towards reptiles. Some specific concepts and discoveries Professor Merck talked about are that where turtles go in the tree of creatures has changed a lot. For example, the scutosaurus karpinski was in the turtle section but isn't closely related. Also turtles are closer to birds than reptiles we now know. The position of the turtles is a big problem.
The dinosaur, vertebrae, and space halls all had interactive components. These components included touchable specimens and facts where you have to flip a physical thing to see what’s on the other side. They also had molds of certain parts of the dinosaurs or vertebrae that could be touched. They also had computer interactives. There were also drawings of each creature or phenomena. The dinosaur hall showed fossils of the dinosaurs. It has texts explaining what the dinosaur is. There are also labels of the parts of its body. They show where it is from and when it lived in a little timeline that is very organized. The vertebrae hall had the same exact thing but with vertebrates. The space hall had a fish tank filled with what I think was krill which was fascinating to look at. The space exhibit was very interactive. I felt that almost everything there had an interactive component. They had small dark boxes you could look through, space rocks that you could touch, and more. For all of the halls,the interactive components did a very good job at conveying the information. This is because the interactive components allowed me to get excited about the topics and learn about them in different ways than just reading.The dinosaur and vertebrae halls had elementary school to middle school education level because the writing was easy to read. There was little to no technical information and if there was it was thoroughly explained. The space hall has an elementary education level. I think this because all of the facts were short and extremely basic. Space is a very difficult subject but the exhibit kept it extremely basic. In all, this was a very fun excursion where I learned a lot.