An Experiment to Demonstrate how Gastroliths Help a Dinosaur Digest its Food

Last week in our dinosaur unit we learnt that Stegosaurus, our dinosaur of the week, was a herbivore and ingested stones known as gastroliths (a bit like hens ingesting gravel), which helped to break down the tough plant material.  This was a glaring opportunity to experiment and investigate a bit further.

Equipment for each child

• two Ziploc bags, one labeled with stones and one labeled without stones
• Seven good sized stones from the garden
• Lots of vegetation from the garden
• Timer
• Water (2 cups)

Hypothesis

Method

• Place an equal amount of vegetation in each of the two bags.
• Add a cup of water to one of them, zip it up.
• Set the timer at 3 minutes.
• Have the child agitate the bag as much as they can during that three minutes.

• Add a cup of water to the second bag and place the seven stones inside and do the same, agitating it for three minutes

Results

Conclusion

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