One night, Nanna teaches Little J, Big Cuz and Levi about the star constellations through stories of the past. At school, Ms Chen encourages the students to investigate the evidence of dinosaurs. Little J and Levi set out to find evidence of dinosaurs themselves, happening upon the fossil of Diprotodon, also called Wombat Rex.

Elaborate - Represent and communicate observations and ideas in a variety of ways

Theme - TIME

After viewing Little J & Big Cuz, Episode 2 ‘Wombat Rex’, engage students with the following activities focusing on how living things grow, change and have offspring similar to themselves.

Invite students to access the Scootle resource: What the world is made of (TLF ID L3070).

Use the 'particle model' to explore properties of matter. Compare the arrangement and movement of particles in the three phases of matter: (1) solids, (2) liquids and (3) gases.

Explore how substances can change between the three phases.

Have students pose questions about how and why the Diprotodon (Wombat Rex) died out and became extinct. Particularly, have students think about where the dinosaur died, and what happened to its body to only be left with the fossilised skull that Little J & Levi found.

Ask students to consider that Diprotodon was made up of living tissues and water.

Apply the students’ understanding of how matter is broken down over a period of time till only the skeleton remains. Ask students why they believe the skeleton and teeth is the last part of a living thing to erode/decay, and how it becomes a fossil.

Suggested resources:

• How are fossils formed?
• The skeleton mystery: Why don’t bones decay?

Divide the class into groups and have each group select five different organic objects with different organic properties, for example, a piece of fruit, a piece of meat, a sweet, a piece of bread, milk, water, etc. Have groups hypothesise what they think will happen to the objects if left in an open space in the sun, over a specific time, such as a week, or month.

Each group will be responsible for documenting their experiment for any changes that may occur to each object, for each day. They should take photos to record the changes. At the end of the time period, students should use their scientific observations to describe the changes for each object, suggest reasons why, and predict what may happen to each object after an additional time period.

Have students report to the class their findings. Allow students to link their experiments to what might happen to organic matter over time, particularly, since the time of the dinosaurs.

Look back at the time line string (in the 5E stage -Explain) and have students think about and propose what happens to all organic matter over time.