When I was a kid I loved dinosaurs. I thought dinosaurs were super cool. I had a book about dinosaurs and I knew a lot of the names of dinosaurs. Of course all my friends were also interested in dinosaurs. We always talked about what dinosaur was the king of all, and we often drew pictures of one dinosaur eating another dinosaur, or eating people, or eating everything.
In Canada scientists could find many different kinds of dinosaurs. The land is very big, and because the area is very cold many dinosaur bones were discovered in the earth. There were T-Rex bones, brontosaurs bones, triceratops bones, and many bones that were mysterious and unknown.
I was very excited when scientists discovered a new dinosaur. They named it the “Albertasaurus”. Alberta is the name of where I lived so it was very cool that the scientists gave the name for our area of Canada. At that same time a very huge and beautiful dinosaur museum was made. It is called the Tyrell Dinosaur Museum and it is one of the biggest dinosaur museums in the world. Of course I went there many times.
When I was a kid I always believed that the T-Rex was the biggest and most dangerous dinosaur of all dinosaurs. He was huge. He had so many teeth. He was unstoppable. But, several years later scientists found more dinosaurs, and some were even bigger than the T-Rex. Scientists discovered a huge dinosaur called the “Spinosaurus”. It is a huge dinosaur that looks like an alligator. It was much bigger than the T-Rex. I was a little disappointed. Then, in South Africa, more scientists found another huge dinosaur called the “Gigantosaurus”, and it was also bigger than my favorite T-Rex. I was even more disappointed.
I lived with my disappointment about T-Rex no longer being the biggest dinosaur. Yes, it was not easy, but somehow I learned that it is okay when something you think is true is later not true. That is what science can do. Science will discover new things. Our ideas now may change later when we know more science.
So, you can understand my deep shock when, in 1986, in Argentina, scientists found a dinosaur that was super huge. It was found in the country of Argentina, and this dinosaur was unbelievably big. The T-Rex is about 8 tons, but this new Argentina dinosaur was thought to be about 100 tons, and that is more than twelve times the size! The new giant of giants was named Argenitasaurus.
In the news this week, we learn of more dinosaur news. In Australia, a very new area for dinosaur research a new giant dinosaur has been discovered. The first bones were found in 2007 but more and more of these giant dinosaurs are found. This is Australia’s biggest dinosaur and it is named Australotitan. The size of the Australotitan was very big. It was over 6.5 meters tall and 30 meters long. That means that it is as long as a basketball court. The Australotitan joins the top 15 biggest dinosaurs of the world.
This kind of science is very exciting and very interesting. Science is a wonderful thing to study and to enjoy. Science is something like a way for us to understand a mystery. Long ago, people would look at the sky or at nature and try to understand things. Why was the sky dark at night? How does the sun move? How does the moon move? How old is our earth? Where do people come from? Why do we have eyes and ears, and a nose? How did we grow over time? These are very important questions, and Science helps us to understand the earth more deeply.
The most interesting things about Science is that it can change. Science can keep moving forward and if we have more information we can change our ideas and our feelings. Long ago people believed that our earth was flat like a plate. People believed that bacteria were evil spirits. People believed that the sun moved around the earth. But Science teaches us more, and from more information we can change our opinions.
We may think something to be 100%, like when I believed that the T-Rex was the biggest of all dinosaurs. But when we get new information and new science we can have a chance to grow and change our thinking. It is good to have an opinion, but we must have an open mind. Science keeps our minds open. Science is the study of questions, and the discovery of truth. Please listen very carefully to your science teachers in class today. They have so much to share with you, and also ask them questions too. The study of science can give us all a deeper understanding and a deeper respect for our world, and for each other too.
Good luck in your Science classes today!