Crown Family Playlab

Dino Field Station

Become a Jr. Paleontologist! Work behind the scenes at the Museum to prepare and record dinosaur bones, and learn more about the world of dinosaurs.
What can you do?
	Dig a dinosaur bone out of a field jacket, measure, and record it.
	Sit on a dino nest and hatch dino eggs.
	Make your own Cretaceous scene using dinosaur magnets.
	Make rubbings of real fossils.
	Combine the legs, heads, and bodies of different dinosaurs to create your own prehistoric creature.
	Compare your footprints to a dinosaur’s and your handprints to other animals' paw prints.

What can you discover? When uncovering dinosaur bones, you may learn that:
	When scientists find dinosaur bones, they dig up the whole chunk of rock and dirt around the bones.
	Scientists wrap the bone and rock in tissue paper and aluminum foil and then in burlap and plaster to make a hard cast, just like the ones doctors use. This is a called a field jacket.
	Scientists bring the field jacket back to their lab and carefully dig the fossil out with the same tools that a dentist uses on your teeth.

Want to see more at the Museum?
See Field Museum scientists at work in the McDonald’s Fossil Preparation Laboratory on the second floor. This lab is right outside the entrance to the Evolving Planet exhibition, where you can also see more dinosaurs.

Have more fun at home
When you leave the Crown Family PlayLab you can learn more about dinosaurs by going to your local library. Here are just a few of our favorite dinosaur books.

Interactive
Calling All Dinosaur Explorers... Dig a T.rex bone out of a field jacket.

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