Mary Anning was an amazing woman, who changed the face of palaeontology forever with the fossils she discovered on her local beach. I grew up near the very beaches where she scoured for fossils, and as a history teacher (and specialist in women's history) I am SO excited to bring this class to Outschool! 

Come and find out about Mary Anning, dinosaur hunter extraordinaire!

In this one-time fun and interactive class, students will learn all about Mary Anning. Students do not need to have any prior knowledge of this amazing woman.

The class will run as follows:

2 minutes: Introductions.

5 minutes: We will all chant the tongue-twister 'She sells seashells on the seashore'. (Words will be on the screen and it doesn't matter if students don't know it in advance!) Then we will talk about what the tongue-twister really means and where it comes from. 

5 minutes: I will talk a little bit about Mary Anning growing up in Dorset, on the south coast of England (like me!) and about her and her Dad going out to collect fossils from the beach. 

5 minutes: We will find out about Mary's first big discovery, when she was only twelve. Learners will have the opportunity to look at the original sketch Mary made and to draw their own; can they work out what it was? Students will pretend to be History Detectives and try to solve the puzzle.(Spoiler alert: People at the time thought she had discovered the skeleton of a crocodile, but nowadays we would call it an ichthyosaur!)

5 minutes: We will find out about Mary's next big find; the first full skeleton of a plesiosaurus ever discovered. But guess what happened? People didn't believe that it was real! She was not allowed to join the scientific community because she was a woman, and some people said that her discovery was a fake. 

5: We will read a report from scientists in Europe in 1828 who were debating an 'unknown species of that most rare and curious of all reptiles'. This was other one of Mary's finds! Students will look at some pictures and produce their own report (in drawing or writing form) about what this "curious" creature was. (It was later classified as a Pterodactyl.)

3: Sequence challenge! Working as a group, learners will be challenged to put six events in the correct order in which they happened. Can they beat the clock and help Mary find more fossils!

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* NOTE -  I also run this class for 8-10 year olds * 

I can't wait to meet your learners! This class is one of a series of 'History Detective' classes I run; attend three and gain your certificate! : ) 

I have a Masters from the University of Oxford, a professional teaching qualification, and many years’ experience teaching English, History and Creative Writing. 

Classroom Policies:

We respect others and have fun learning together.

Please feel free to email me any questions you may have.

My most important policy: there is no such thing as a bad question! Please come into the class with an open mind and we will all learn from each other. I hope to see you in class!