A short holiday/educational trip - part one.

Let's face it, when you spent a few days somewhere interesting, even if the primary reason for the trip is a holiday, there will be learning!

After our trip to Dorset last September for the wedding of a friend of mine from school, A's mum aka Nana mentioned that she'd really like to visit the Jurassic coast.  We were all keen on the idea with the result that we have just returned from a trip to Lyme Regis for a few days.  We were there for four nights and three full days and we packed a lot in!

We arrived on Tuesday afternoon, having stopped for a picnic lunch and a Devon cream tea en route at a place recommended by a colleague of A's, which was very good!  The cottage we were staying in was lovely; spacious, clean, light and airy, with fantastic views from two of the three bedrooms.

View from the main bedroom.

We headed down the ridiculously steep hill towards the Cobb and beach and explored the town and made some plans for the next few days.  K & M were very happy with the beach and we agreed that we would return for a while at least every day.

On Wednesday we headed to the town museum to book places on a fossil walk, which we did for the Friday.  The fossil walk included entrance to the museum, so we spent a couple of hours in there while we were there.  Lyme Regis has a very rich and varied history, from the pre-historical Jurrasic coast, a Parliamentarian stronghold during the Civil War, to being a pigeon post centre during the Second World War, as well as being the setting for numerous works of fiction, most famously The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles and Jane Austen's Persuasion.

K & M although they did look at other parts of the museum spent most of their time in the section about Lyme's most famous resident, Mary Anning and the fossils.

Fossils!

Sketch of an Icthyosaur Skull.

The text says:  Icthyosaur Skull drawn with Fossilised Belemnite Ink.  Mary Anning discovered the belemnites had fossilised ink sacs - as modern squid do.  She, with her friend and fellow scientist Elizabeth Philpot, ground the fossil ink sacs to make sepia ink.  Elizabeth drew this picture of an icthyosaur skull with the fossil ink.

M, K & Nana.

A Lego Icthyosaurus!

After heading back up the hill to the cottage for some lunch, we followed a sign to Dinosaurland.  We weren't entirely sure what to expect, but what we found wasn't it!  It was an "old-fashioned" museum, no whistle and bell interactional things, but lots to look at and read about and very definitely worth a visit.  There were plenty of fossils, as you'd expect, but also a modern natural history section and also what they called a time gallery, with scenes from geological periods through to the Cretaceous. 

Some interesting things that we learned (that's the adults as well as the girls!):

Tides - they are affected by the sun (around 30%) as well as the moon (70%).  It is when the moon and sun are alined that the biggest difference between high and low tides occurs and these Spring tides get their name from the old Norse for swell.  When the sun and moon are out of line and work against each other and the difference between high and low tides is the smallest, or Neap tides from the old Norse for scarcity.

We also learned that tides work around points, where there is no difference between high and low tides, at the centre of these points is a rotating whirlpool called an amphidrome.  This phenomenon was proven to exist by Captain Hewitt of HMS Fairy, who anchored his ship at the appropriate spot and found no tidal variation.

There is also a relatively small display about Darwin, although no mention of Wallace (we had an interesting conversation about this with the owner later), which also talked about Stephen Jay Gould and his development of the theory of evolution with the idea of punctuated equilibrium, which suggests that evolution occurs in fits and starts when changes in the environment give cause for that change.  This is something that I really want to find out more about!

Something that was interesting as regards evolution was that there was a very conscious decision to emphasise that evolution is not a question of a process of improvement resulting in man, but rather a one of change to best fit with a changing environment.

The girls really liked this limerick!

Some beautiful ammonites.

The girls really enjoyed finding the answers to the quiz sheet that they were given to do too.

Later we had a ice-creams and a round of mini-golf followed by fish n chips for tea.

Since returning home, I have had a look at Dinosaurland's website and really like their philosophy for many reasons, but particularly this, admittedly rather lengthy, part:

We do not have any so called interactive or hands on displays. People come to see the fossils, not animations or games. If they want to see animations or play games, they can go to a theme park or play on their computer.

We do not believe in dumbing down for our visitors. People are interested in science and knowledge and are able to understand complex issues which are presented clearly and without jargon. We fully expect our younger visitors to know that the Iapetus Ocean separated Scotland and England 400 million years ago. Encouragingly, most of them have no problem getting this as an answer on our quiz for children aged 5 and older.

There is a strong trend in the public museums to reduce the number of specimens on display and to have flashy displays with big pictures, animations, special lighting and cabinets. This is of course vastly expensive and needs overpaid specialists to come in and do it for them. There seems to be a culture that how it is displayed is more important than what is displayed. It seems to be that image is more important than substance.

There is the idea that people and particularly young children, need things to be simplified and made more glitzy to be interesting. We would argue that the specimens are exciting enough as it is. There is also the idea that young children need to be able to run around or they will not be interested. It is our experience that children know the difference between a playground and a museum if you give them the chance.

One of the great delights of being at the museum every day is seeing the reaction of the children as they open the door to go in and are confronted by a wall of ammonites ranging in size from a penny to a wheel. The usual reaction is ‘Wow!’ and the children appreciate the specimens rather than the way they are displayed. 

I mentioned a conversation at the end of our visit, when I asked about the decision not to mention Wallace in the section about Darwin.  Owner and palaeontologist, Steve Davies, gave an interesting and convincing answer, talking about Darwin's years of research and study along with the actual theory of evolution, as opposed to Wallace who, while he independently came up with a similar idea, did not put in the years of research to go along with it as Darwin did.   He did take agree that perhaps a mention of Wallace as the trigger for Darwin's eventual publication of his work might be a good idea though.  We also spoke about the name of the museum giving perhaps a misleading impression, something that he and his wife have discussed at length apparently.  Whatever it's called, this museum really is well worth a visit.