10 Dinosaur-Themed STEM Activities You Can Print and Do Today

These ten activities use real paleontology concepts, not just a plastic dinosaur glued onto a generic science project.

Why dinosaur themes make STEM activities stick

A lot of "dinosaur STEM" content is really just a generic volcano or a homemade catapult with a plastic T. rex sitting next to it. The dinosaur is decoration, not the point. The activities below work the other way around: each one comes from an actual method paleontologists use, scaled down to kitchen-table size. Kids aren't just doing science near dinosaurs, they're doing the same kind of thinking that goes into reading a footprint or reconstructing a skeleton.

You don't need a downloadable pack to use these. Everything is written out in full below, with materials you likely already have. If you want a physical copy for the fridge or a classroom wall, your browser's print function will turn this page into a clean printout.

What you'll need on hand

Most of these activities use household items: sand or dry rice, small plastic animal toys, ice cube trays, a ruler or tape measure, plain paper, tape, and basic craft supplies like clay or plaster. A couple call for cocoa powder or flour and a small ball. None require anything you'd have to special-order.

For record-keeping, skip the search for a printable worksheet and just hand kids a plain notebook or a few sheets of paper folded into a booklet. Paleontologists keep field notes, not worksheets, so this is closer to the real thing anyway.

1. Fossil dig excavation

Freeze small toy bones or shells inside a block of ice, or bury them in a shallow tray of sand or dry rice. Kids use a spoon, paintbrush, and toothpick to slowly uncover them, brushing away material instead of digging, the way real excavators protect fragile bone. This is the easiest activity to scale down for preschoolers: use fewer "fossils," bigger tools, and a shorter dig time.

2. Trackway math: estimating hip height from footprints

Real trackway scientists use footprints to estimate how tall an animal stood at the hip, since hip height relates to leg length and stride. A commonly used rough guideline, often credited to biomechanics researcher R. McNeill Alexander's early work on dinosaur locomotion, multiplies footprint length by about four to estimate hip height. Treat it as a rough field estimate, not an exact formula. It varies by species, and a poorly preserved print throws the math off.

Have kids trace their own foot, measure its length, and multiply by four to estimate their own "hip height" if they walked like a two-legged dinosaur. Then measure their actual hip height and compare. Older kids can look up real dinosaur footprint lengths and try the same math.

3. Sauropod neck cantilever challenge

Long-necked dinosaurs like Brachiosaurus supported enormous, unsupported necks that stuck straight out from the body. That's a cantilever, a structure held up only at one end. Give kids a stack of index cards or a few sheets of stiff paper, some tape, and a small weight (a coin or eraser). The challenge: build a "neck" that extends as far as possible off the edge of a table while holding the weight at the tip without collapsing. This is straight structural engineering with a specific, real biological reason behind it.

4. Build a sifting screen like a real paleontologist

Field teams sift excavated soil through mesh screens to catch small bone fragments and teeth that would otherwise be missed. Kids can build a simple version by stretching mesh fabric or an old strainer basket over a frame made from a cardboard box with the bottom cut out. Bury small beads or gravel in sand, then sift the mixture through the screen to "recover" the finds. It's a genuine engineering task: get the mesh size right, or everything falls through or nothing does.

5. Stratigraphy in a jar

Fossils are dated in part by which rock layer they're found in, since deeper layers are generally older. Layer sand, small gravel, and soil of different colors in a clear jar, tucking a small plastic bone or shell between two of the layers partway through. Kids record which layer they placed each "fossil" in, then discuss which layers are older and younger based on position. This introduces relative dating, a core paleontology concept, without any complicated vocabulary.

6. Feathers vs. scales: which insulates better

Many dinosaurs, especially smaller theropods, are now known to have had feathers, and scientists study how feathers versus scaly skin might have affected body temperature. Wrap two ice cubes separately, one in a scrap of faux fur or feathers (a craft feather boa works) and one in a smooth material like foil or a plastic bag, then set both in the sun or a warm room. Check every ten minutes to see which one melts faster. This turns thermoregulation into a timed, visible experiment.

7. Protect the nest: egg drop engineering

Many dinosaurs built nests and cared for eggs on the ground, where eggs faced real threats from weather and predators. Give kids a raw egg (or a plastic egg for younger kids) and a small pile of materials: cotton balls, straws, cardboard, tape. Their job is to build a nest structure that protects the egg from a drop of about three feet. Test it, then talk about which materials absorbed the impact and which didn't.

8. Impact crater investigation

The leading explanation for the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs around 66 million years ago is a massive asteroid impact. Fill a shallow tray with flour and dust the top lightly with cocoa powder to show the surface layer. Drop small balls of different sizes and weights from the same height into the tray and measure the resulting craters. Bigger or heavier "asteroids" make different craters than small ones, giving kids a hands-on feel for how scientists study impact sites.

9. Scale it out: how long was that dinosaur really

Numbers on a page don't mean much to a seven-year-old. Take sidewalk chalk outside and measure out the actual known length of a large dinosaur like Argentinosaurus (roughly 100 feet, among the longest land animals known) or a more modest one like Stegosaurus (around 30 feet). Mark the length on a driveway or sidewalk and have kids walk it, then compare it to a school bus or their own height. This is measurement and estimation practice that actually lands.

10. Cast your own fossil

Most fossils aren't original bone, they're minerals that gradually replaced the bone's structure. Press a plastic dinosaur toy or shell into a flattened piece of clay to make a mold, remove the toy, then pour in plaster of Paris to fill the mold. Once it hardens, pop out the cast and compare it to the original toy. It's a simple, concrete way to explain what "fossilization" actually means, rather than treating the word as just a label.

Adapting these for preschoolers

For ages 3 to 5, shorten every activity to one clear step at a time, use bigger and fewer materials, and expect an adult to do most of the measuring and mixing while the child does the pouring, digging, or pressing. The fossil dig, feathers-versus-scales test, and egg-nest challenge translate best to this age group since they're mostly sensory and physical rather than math-heavy.

Tools that make these easier

If you want pre-made "fossils" to bury or excavate rather than assembling your own, the National Geographic Dinosaur Excavation Kit includes a solid block with real dig tools and several dinosaur bone replicas inside, which saves the prep step for activity one.

Keep the momentum going

If your child powers through this list in an afternoon and wants more, that's exactly the audience the Professor Dinosaur book series was built for: stories and STEM concepts built around real paleontology, for kids who want the next fact after this one. Browse the series here on professordinosaur.com to keep the digging going.