Mary Anning (58) (Little People, BIG DREAMS)

Product Information

Addley, E. (16 December 2019). "Hopes rise for statue of pioneering fossil hunter Mary Anning". The Guardian . Retrieved 13 October 2020. History is a subject which can lend itself to a wide range of cross-curricular links. As a teacher, you will have a greater awareness of how this topic may act as stimulus for learning in other subjects. This topic, in particular, has explicit links to science and teachers may wish to arrange a visit to a local museum with a fossil collection. The suggestions contain both approaches to developing the children’s historical knowledge and understanding, as well as activities more closely related to the science curriculum.

I have experienced a range of stimuli, and had opportunities to participate in enquiries, both collaboratively and with growing independence. In addition, there is this Live Lesson , which explores ‘how fossils are made and what they can tell us, the story of the real life fossil hunter Mary Anning, and the evolution of animals.’

Activities

The official record doesn’t offer much drama beyond Mary and her family being on the edge of going to the poor-house most given days. Very suspenseful if you are experiencing it, but not the most riveting plot for the reader. So I completely understand why Chevalier creates the rivalry between the two women for the attention of one un-noteworthy man. Still, it disappoints me. One the main ribbons running through this book is the changing role of women during this time period—getting recognition for their minds, not just their appearances, and loosening some of the conventions that bound them to child-rearing and household roles. Both of the main characters and all of the marine reptiles are indeed remarkable creatures. The Publisher Says: A voyage of discoveries, a meeting of two remarkable women, and extraordinary time and place enrich bestselling author Tracy Chevalier's enthralling new novel Home, Everard (1814), "Some Account of the Fossil Remains of an Animal More Nearly Allied to Fishes Than Any of the Other Classes of Animals", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 104: 571–577, doi: 10.1098/rstl.1814.0029, S2CID 111132066

The only person who did name a species after Anning during her lifetime was the Swiss-American naturalist, Louis Agassiz. In the early 1840s, he named two fossil fish species after Anning – Acrodus anningiae, and Belenostomus anningiae – and another after her friend Elizabeth Philpot. Agassiz was grateful for the help the women had given him in examining fossil fish specimens during his visit to Lyme Regis in 1834. [43] After Anning's death, other species, including the ostracod Cytherelloidea anningi, and two genera, the therapsid reptile genus Anningia, and the bivalve mollusc genus Anningella, were named in her honour. [22] [92] In 2012, the plesiosaur genus Anningasaura was named after Anning [93] and the species Ichthyosaurus anningae was named after her in 2015. [94]It was like an itch or a twitch, just knowing that there were fossils out there waiting to be discovered. See also: History of palaeontology and Timeline of palaeontology Ichthyosaurs Drawing of part of the skeletal remains of Temnodontosaurus platyodon, the first ichthyosaur found by Anning – from Everard Home's 1814 paper