Mary Anning, Fossil Hunter

Activities to try

1. 1

   Meet Mary Anning in her own voice

   Why it works: Mary Anning was a real person whose discoveries were key evidence that whole kinds of animals had gone extinct — a radical idea at the time — and whose lack of credit as a poor woman raises the question of who gets to do science and who gets remembered.

   1. Picture standing on the windy shingle beach at Lyme Regis while Mary Anning works the cliffs, and ask her questions such as 'What did you find?', 'Was it dangerous?', and 'Why wasn't your name on the discoveries?'
   2. Listen to her describe how her brother Joseph found a strange giant ichthyosaur skull (around 1811) and how she, as a girl of about 12, found and dug out the rest of the skeleton, and how she later uncovered the first nearly complete plesiosaur skeleton (1823)
   3. Ask her why fossil hunting was risky and hear about working the crumbling sea cliffs and the landslides that endangered fossil hunters — one cliff-fall killed her dog Tray and nearly killed her
   4. Ask her why her name was often missing from the discoveries and hear, plainly, that gentlemen bought her fossils and wrote scientific papers about them, often without naming her as the finder, and that as a woman she could not even join the Geological Society
   5. Ask 'Were they dinosaurs?' and hear her correction that her famous beasts were sea reptiles, not dinosaurs
2. 2

   Explore the Lyme Regis cliffs and a life timeline

   Why it works: The who/what/where of Anning's life — Lyme Regis, early 1800s, fossils in the sea cliffs — together with why her finds mattered and why she was overlooked.

   1. Tap features of a Lyme Regis cliff scene to reveal each labelled find — ichthyosaur and plesiosaur — and where along the coast she hunted
   2. Tap points on a timeline of the early 1800s to reveal key life events and discoveries in order
   3. Open a 'Why wasn't she credited?' panel to read, at an age-appropriate level, that her work was often published by men without naming her and that she could not join the Geological Society
   4. Compare a 'credit then vs now' contrast: unnamed in old papers → celebrated today
   5. Compare a 'before/after' on the idea of extinction to see what her fossils helped prove
3. 3

   Prospect the Jurassic Coast like Anning

   Why it works: A felt sense of what Anning actually did in the field — careful searching, uncovering, and identifying specimens — and that this was hazardous, hands-on work.

   1. Prospect a cliff scene safely to search for fossils where Anning worked
   2. Uncover an ichthyosaur or plesiosaur specimen
   3. Log and label the find as Anning did, noting that it is a marine reptile
   4. Discuss what makes this hunting dangerous (crumbling cliffs, landslides)