Specimen Fact File

The Time Travellers Atlas · timetravellersatlas.com

Name

Class

Date

Go to timetravellersatlas.com and choose one dinosaur. Spin the globe and tap a marker, or use the specimen list.

1The basics

Dinosaur name
What its name means
Period it lived in
How long ago (millions of years)
Country it was found in
Length
Weight
Diet

2Who found it?

Who discovered it
What year

Was the person who found it a scientist? Sometimes they weren't.

3Draw your specimen

Label at least two features

How do we know?

Specimen Fact File, continued · timetravellersatlas.com

Everything on page 1 was worked out from fossils. Nobody has ever seen a living dinosaur. So how did anyone find all of it out?

4What is the evidence?

Read the profile and take the guided tour. What was actually found — a whole skeleton, a few bones, teeth, footprints, eggs?

5Pick one fact and trace it back

Choose something from page 1 — its diet, its weight, how it moved. How could anyone know that from fossils?

The fact I chose

6What are scientists still unsure about?

Look for "probably", "may have", "scientists disagree", "we still don't know". Being unsure is normal — it means there isn't enough evidence yet.

7One question I would ask a palaeontologist

Teacher notes

Specimen Fact File · timetravellersatlas.com/for-teachers/

What this covers

Sections 1–3 are research and recording. Sections 4–7 are the point: they move students from what we know to how we know it, and treat scientific uncertainty as normal rather than as a failure.

Running it

Setup: open timetravellersatlas.com. No login, no account, no cost. Works on Chromebooks, iPads and phones.
Choosing: let students pick their own — ownership matters more than coverage. For a spread, assign continents rather than species.
Sections 4–6 need the specimen's guided tour ("Take the tour" in the profile). Tours are narrated, so students who find reading hard can listen instead.
Timing: about 45 minutes for both pages. Section 7 works well as a closing discussion.

Differentiation

Support: print page 1 only — sections 1–3 stand alone as a complete activity.
Extension: section 6 is the stretch. Ask students to compare two specimens and decide which one scientists know more about, and why.

Specimens with the strongest "how do we know" stories

Oviraptor — named "egg thief" in 1924, wrongly accused for seventy years, cleared by a fossil embryo.
Mussaurus — named "mouse lizard" from hatchlings; the adults weighed a tonne.
Iguanodon — a thumb spike reconstructed as a nose horn for decades.
Wiffen's theropod — found by a self-taught New Zealander who proved the experts wrong.
Psittacosaurus — we know its actual colour, from fossilised pigment.
Deinocheirus — two arms and nothing else, for fifty years.

Curriculum links

Curriculum	Strand
New Zealand	Nature of Science — Investigating in science; Understanding about science. Levels 2–4.
England	Working scientifically — asking questions, gathering and recording data, using evidence. KS2.
United States	NGSS Practices — Engaging in argument from evidence; Obtaining and evaluating information. Grades 3–5, MS.
Australia	Science as a Human Endeavour — Nature and development of science. Years 3–6.

Answers: there is no key — every student researches a different specimen. Sections 4–6 are judged on reasoning, not correctness. A student who writes "we don't know for sure" and explains why has understood the point better than one who states a confident fact.