Three years ago, on my first visit to New York, I suffered a stiff neck and slight bruising. I wasn’t mugged, I just spent too much time gazing upwards and bumping into people. Walking through Times Square was like experiencing the world from the perspective of an ant. Viewing the whole of humanity from the top of the Empire State Building only served to reinforce mankind’s insignificance in the overall scheme of things.
The concept of scale is a difficult one to grasp, even for adults. It is especially difficult when you’re only 8. That is why I have chosen to sit in the belly of a tylosaurus with a small group of children. I am hoping that by spending time in its digestive tract, they will get an idea of the size of one of the largest animals that ever lived.
Our journey into the creature’s interior began in the Late Cretaceous period, which for the purpose of our role play is just after lunchtime on a Thursday afternoon. There we were happily row-row-rowing our boat gently through the Western Interior Seaway (in the middle of what is now North America) when something beneath the waters stirred.
Scaling the imagination
We clung to the sides of our craft as it pitched and rocked. Ahead of us a huge swell rose into the air. When it fell away again, we found ourselves staring into the face of a hideous sea monster. It lunged towards us, jaws open wide, and swallowed us whole. At this point, Mrs Beardsley threw a black drape over us and our fate was sealed. “Stop giggling,” I hissed as we sat in the dark. “Being eaten by a monster from the prehistoric deep is no laughing matter.”
The start of the lesson had been anything but amusing. Armed with nothing more than a metre stick, a fact-file and an artist’s impression of a tylosaurus, we tried to visualise how big the creature would have been.
To this end, we marked off 15 metres for its length and chalked in an approximation of its outline on the playground. But as every detective knows, a chalk outline doesn’t shock like the real thing. Even after I drew in long pointed teeth and vicious eyes, the children remained unimpressed.
Acting out being ingested by a hungry tylosaurus is easy-peasy
To appreciate the scale of something this big requires more than a measuring stick: it requires imagination. So, using roleplay, we turned two dimensions into four and instantly transported ourselves back 80 million years. Even children who have trouble with half past, quarter past and quarter to the hour can do time travel, and acting out being ingested by a hungry tylosaurus is easy-peasy.
When you are trapped inside the belly of an ancient sea creature with a party of schoolchildren, it is important to keep spirits up.
We did this by singing The Dinosaurs Song. When Mrs Beardsley removed the drape, I congratulated myself that all the children now have a better understanding of the Upper Cretaceous and the monstrous creatures that inhabited it.
“Were you alive in dinosaur times?” Zayden asked me, as we walked back to class.
“No, I wasn’t born until the Upper Palaeolithic,” I replied.
Steve Eddison teaches at Arbourthorne Community Primary School in Sheffield
