Dinosaur Expedition Kit
National Geographic
by Dave McAwesomeWhen I first learned about dinosaurs as a kid, I was like, "Whoa! Something that cool actually existed?" I immediately set to digging up the backyard. Never mind that I had neither the tools nor the common sense to dig below the layer of top soil and clay. Just as any triangular rocks HAD to be Indian arrowheads (neither political correctness nor historical accuracy had been invented yet), any bones I found HAD to be dinosaur bones. I was very proud, for example, to discover the thigh bone of a Squirrelsaurus Rex.
National Geographic's dino kit blows my childhood experience out of the water. I grabbed the hammer and pick and began chiseling away layers of sediment in the center of the block. I expanded my excavation outwardly. When my efforts revealed the vertebrae of a dinosaur, I experienced the same joy I imagined I would on real digs in the Mongolian or Dakotan plains. Little by little, I carefully unearthed a scale replica of a full brachiosaurus skeleton (other dinosaurs are available). At that moment, I was Stephen Jay fucking Gould (except he's a paleontologist, not an archaeologist but whatever). Archaeology was never this fun. It's like Indiana Jones without the Nazis and car chases. I didn't even need to hire cheap labor to remove the excavated dirt. Just a vacuum cleaner. (This is messy work.)
Have fun, future Stephen Jay Gould.
GeoSafari also makes good kits.
