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A small piece of the Cretaceous Period came to Kim Weber’s third-grade science class on Nov. 2 at Hillsdale Elementary. The Cretaceous Period is known for dinosaur greats like the Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus rex and the Maiasaura, or duck-billed dinosaur.

Kathleen Stone, grandmother to third-grader Lucas Teeters, has worked as a paleontologist on dinosaur digs in Israel and at Jack Horner’s famous Montana dig, where the Maiasaura was originally discovered. Stone brought many examples for third-graders to inspect on Monday and talked about the perks of her job digging up dinosaurs.

“I’ve been doing this since the 1980s,” Stone said, “so, for around 20 years. It’s a great job.”

Stone’s husband, Jerry Stokes, also helped with the presentation.

Stone began her presentation with the mention of the film, “Jurassic Park,” a film made in 1993 about a dinosaur park gone bad, that many children are familiar with. She pointed out that the dinosaurs depicted in the film were actually from the Cretaceous Period and not the Jurassic Period as the film portrays. As Stone passed around an ostrich egg and photos of a Maiasaura’s nest showing dinosaur eggs, she described to the children that young dinosaurs are made of cartilage, similar to what the human ears and nose are made of, which makes the babies weak. When at the Horner dig in Montana, Stone said the group discovered a dinosaur nest and that it was like putting pieces to a puzzle together.

“We discovered that the baby dinosaurs have to be fed by their parents while their little bodies are developing,” Stone said to the group of curious kids. She then asked if the kids knew which parent did most of the feeding. Many responded with the mother duck-billed dinosaur, but Stone said that’s a fact no one will ever know.

Stone informed the class that actual dinosaur blood had been discovered in a fossilized form and asked the kids what would happen if scientists decided to bring a dinosaur to life, just like in “Jurassic Park.”

“It could eat you,” one kid exclaimed. “It could crush the school,” another said.

Kids then went to different stations set up around the classroom to take a closer look at what the differences are between actual fo

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