Booking Info for Museums

It's 1979 and India Wood has just found something unusual. While at a ranch in northwestern Colorado, the 13-year-old picks up some intriguing bones. It turns out she's found a dinosaur - the most complete Allosaurus ever found in Colorado.

In August 1994, 13-year-old Wes Linster stumbles onto black bones in a big ball of dirt. Then he notices a little jaw and some tiny teeth. Wes has just discovered an almost-perfect dinosaur fossil, adding proof to the theory that some dinosaurs evolved into birds.

In the summer of 1999, in upstate New York, while deepening the pond in their yard, Larry and Sheryl Lozier unearth the Hyde Park Mastodon - an essentially complete mastodon skeleton, over 10,000 years old.

In Khatanga, Siberia, in 1998, renowned French ice explorer Bernard Buigues learns that nomadic herders have discovered mammoth tusks, protruding from frozen ground. Supported by Discovery Channel, his exploration team, lifts 26 tons of permafrost-encased mammoth from the tundra. Miles away, in an underground cave, under the watchful eyes of the scientific team, this giant ice cube slowly defrosts, as scientists and the world waits to learn what secrets are held inside.

These amazing discoveries - from backyards to the far reaches of the earth - expand both our knowledge of the past and change how we view and take advantage of the science of discovery.

Prehistoric Worlds - Backyard Discoveries recreates both the environments and the conditions from the electricity surrounding news coverage of India Wood's discovery, down to the cold of the Jarkov mammoth ice cave. Visitors can feel and smell what a wooly mammoth's coat is like, of touch an actual mammoth tusk. Video, 3-D displays, robotic animals, computer interactives, fossils, games, virtual reality, and recreated environments bring visitors to the moment of discovery. They can search a database to find "backyard discoveries" in the immediate area. As visitors move through the exhibition, they encounter four distinct areas:

Act I: BACKYARD USA 1. India Wood's home: India kept and stored allosaurus fossil bones under her bed until they were identified by a paleontologist. Hyde Park dig: Sheryl and Larry Lozier deepen their pool and discover a complete mastodon skeleton.

Act II: BACKYARD USA 2. Two more backyard discoveries: Fourteen-year-old Wes Larkin unearths Bambiraptor on his family's Montana ranch; Charlie Magovern, sorting through fossilized eggs in his garage, finds Baby Louie, the first recorded dinosaur embryo.

Act III: DOLGAN BACKYARD. Taimyr Peninsula, Siberia. The Jarkov family leads ice explorer Bernard Buigues to where they discovered two perfect mammoth tusks protruding from the tundra.

The Buigues team begins to dig ...

Act IV: RESEARCH CAVE. A cave deep in the permafrost. A massive block of ice slowly defrosts under the scrutiny of international scientists.

Epilogue: What is the significance of these prehistoric finds? What do they tell us about our lives? Why should we care?

Audience Appeal

After experiencing Prehistoric Worlds - Backyard Discoveries, visitors will understand:

• The human stories surrounding ground-breaking scientific discoveries
• The passion of people of all ages involved
  in science
• The innovations and questions that drive cutting-edge science and technology
• The exciting implications for life on Earth from digging up the prehistoric past