UKS2 Topic: Dinosaurs & Fossils Block E: Ice Age Fossils Session 1
The Story of William Buckland
(To be read out alongside Presentation 2)
(Slide 1)
William Buckland was born on 12th March 1784 in Devon. His father would take him to see quarries where stone was being dug out to make roads.
(Slide 2)
They found lots of fossils there, including ammonites.
(Slide 3)
When he was 17, William won a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Most people went to university to become a priest, a lawyer or a doctor. William studied to be a priest but he also studied sciences, like mineralogy, geology, anatomy and chemistry. Eventually he became a lecturer himself.
(Slide 4)
When not working, he toured around the British Isles collecting fossils and rocks that helped him work out the geological layers (strata) of the islands.
(Slide 5)
His lectures were very interesting. A man called Henry Acland, who later became a doctor, was in one of his lectures and said: “He had in his hand a huge hyena’s skull. He suddenly dashed down the steps - rushed skull in hand at the first undergraduate on the front bench and shouted ‘What rules the world?’ The youth, terrified, threw himself against the next back seat, and answered not a word. He rushed then on to me, pointing the hyena full in my face - ‘What rules the world?’ ‘Haven’t an idea’, I said. ‘The stomach, sir’, he cried (again mounting the rostrum) ‘rules the world. The great ones eat the less, the less the lesser still.’”
Buckland started visiting other countries in Europe to look at their geology and fossils. Scientists from Europe started to visit him. One was a Frenchman called George Cuvier who came over to see huge fossil bones from a quarry in Stonesfield, a village north of Oxford.
(Slide 6)
They would later agree that they were of a new type of animal and named this animal a ‘great lizard’, or ‘Megalosaurus’. They were the first described dinosaurs.
(Slide 7)
William married Mary Morland, who was already a very good illustrator and collector of fossils, and had drawn pictures for the works of George Cuvier. William and Mary went on a year-long honeymoon tour to many geological locations in France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Sicily.
(Slide 8)
At first Buckland believed that the geological layers that he had studied were very good evidence of Noah's flood having covered the whole world. He did believe, however, that there had been a long age before the flood in which animals that were no longer around lived. After visiting a Swiss scientist, Louis Agassiz, he became convinced that the evidence he had seen was actually the result of glaciers covering much of northern Europe during several Ice Ages.
(Slide 9)
William's son Francis (Frank) grew up to become a doctor, but was also very interested in animals and wrote books about fish. He also wanted to eat exotic animals, something he got from his father – who had often eaten mice on toast!
How to Use a Sketchbook
Don't worry about getting it wrong
It's fine to cross out and start again. It's part of the process. You will learn from your mistakes, so keep them in your sketchbook.
Collect things and stick them in your sketchbook
Postcards, feathers, leaves, photos, textiles, flyers, stickers and magazine cuttings can all be stuck in your sketchbook. You could take rubbings of interesting textures, or trace pictures and stick them in.
Be messy!
Try out new techniques and materials in your sketchbook. That way you have a collection of what works (and what doesn't).
Don’t just draw. Write as well.
Write down thoughts, conversations and ideas. Write notes as explanations of things you have put in your sketchbook to remind you and explain to others what they are, whether you're happy with what you've done or any changes you would make if you did it again.
Suggested Sketchbook Headings
Mary
Francis
Context / Dinosaurs / Megalosaurus
Ichthyosaur
Ammonite
Ice Age / Giant deer
Hyena
Mammoth
Process / Silhouette / Paper-cutting
Camera obscura
Shadow
Sun-printing
Form / Subjects / William Buckland
Mary Buckland
Francis Buckland
George Cuvier
Objects / Fossils
Skulls
Shells
Furniture
Position / Symmetry
Centre
Under
Over
Mood / Feeling / Funny
Serious
Atmosphere / Strange
Homely
© Original resource copyright Hamilton Trust, who give permission for it to be adapted as wished by individual users.
We refer you to our warning, at the foot of the block overview, about links to other websites.