Ancient animals

Ancient animals Organiser’s Card About the activity This activity is designed to get children thinking about animals that lived in the past. Cosmic and Gem are reading a story about a scientist that uses DNA to bring back extinct animals. Cosmic thinks it would be cool to bring back the woolly mammoth, but Gem doesn’t think it would survive in today’s world. Through this activity you will support your group to: • Learn about different animals that lived during different periods in the past, exploring what we know about them and how • Think about what could happen if different animals were brought back • Present their ideas Kit list • Poster making materials • Access to the internet (or printed materials about different extinct animals) What to do 1. Introduce the activity using the story from the Activity Card, ask the group if they know any extinct animals and if they think it would be a good idea to bring them back 2. Introduce the children to DNA and explain that is it a code that provides instructions for your genome, which contains all the information to build your body. Use the links below to introduce this topic. 3. Give out the Activity Cards and poster making materials to the group 5. Support the children to conduct their research and record their findings 6. Support the children to make their posters with information about their chosen extinct animal 7. Ask the children to present their findings to the rest of the group. They can be as creative in their presentation as they want, for example, they might like to act out the behaviour of their extinct animal 4. Explain that they will be researching and making posters about extinct animals, this could be done in pairs or small groups

Things to think about There are some online resources that you may wish to use to support these activities: • What is DNA? yourgenome.org/theme/what-is-dna • What is a gene? yourgenome.org/theme/what-is-a-gene • What is a genome? yourgenome.org/theme/what-is-a-genome • bsa.sc/national-geographic • bsa.sc/woolly-mammoth • bsa.sc/tasmanian-tiger Keywords • DNA • Extinct • Genetics • Genome British Science Association Registered Charity No. 212479 and SC039236