The majority of pupils find discovering the prehistoric world of dinosaurs and fossils to be completely fascinating – and it is easy to see why! Fortunately, you do not have to orga-nise an overseas school trip to reveal this world to your students. There are a number of excellent museum-based tours and coastal excursions right here in the UK that will allow your students to unearth fossils and examine real skeletons of the astonishing beasts that once roamed the planet. Here are a few school trip ideas that will help to bring your classroom lessons to life for this brilliant topic.
National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh
Your class is sure to be in awe when they set their eyes upon the life-sized cast of a T-rex in the National Museum of Scotland, which is a colossal 12 metres long! Additionally, there are educational workshops on offer at the museum that will allow your group to learn all about palaeontology. This includes handling real fossils, discovering how fossil evidence is used and reporting their findings back to the group.
Natural History Museum
London’s Natural History Museum is a wonderful place to take curious minds. It often tops our list of school trip ideas for learning about the dinosaurs. The fascinating Dino-saurs Gallery provides pupils with the unique ability to see the first Tyrannosaurus rex fossil discovered, the skull of a Triceratops and an Oviraptor egg, among other marvels. The museum can arrange fun workshops, including taking part in a fossil dig where stu-dents can learn more about what they dig up and how to draw bone structures.
Scarborough’s Coast
Scarborough is home to East Yorkshire’s remarkable Dinosaur Coast, which is a superb place to take students for an unforgettable educational excursion. Along the coast you can find remains from millions of years ago and breathtaking footprints of these long-extinct creatures. This can really bring the topic to life and amaze young minds.
Isle of Wight’s Beaches
There are few better places for learning about the prehistoric world than the Isle of Wight. Here pupils can embark on a fascinating fossil hunt on one of the island’s beaches, discovering how they are formed and how they came about to be on the beach. Possible findings of remains from the Cretaceous period include dinosaur bones and teeth, insects, fish, Ammonites, Bivalves and various plants and seeds.
You do not need to travel far to provide your class with a valuable learning experience for this fascinating topic. Many teachers like school trip ideas that combine interactive activities that the class can benefit from in the museums with making discoveries in natu-ral settings, both supported by classroom learning. Arranging a trip yourself can be a challenge, which is why many teachers opt to use the services of a reputable school tra-vel organiser instead.
John Gardiner is the Managing Director of The School Travel Company, a tour operator specialising in educational travel for school and youth groups to the UK, Europe and beyond. With over twenty years’ experience providing students with valuable and engag-ing learning experiences outside of the classroom, John and his team can help make your school trip ideas a reality.
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