Crowd Funding For Dinosaur Education in Mongolia
Despite the fact that dinosaurs were discovered two centuries ago, there are children in this world that have never even seen their fossils. What’s more surprising is that some of these children live in the very places that fossils are found. These kids grow up not really having much of a vested interest in dinosaurs, because they don’t know anything about them. Their attitudes towards fossil poaching, or destruction of skeletons for commercial purposes, are considerably different than someone who has grown up with a fondness for dinosaurs. That’s why the Institute for the Study of Mongolian Dinosaurs (ISMD) is doing an outreach program. To teach the kids in Mongolia about dinosaurs, and give them the same awe inspiring experience that children around the world have gotten.
ISMD has started an Indiegogo campaign. They are a non-profit that wants to take a mobile museum on tour around Mongolia, giving children that live in remote regions the chance to learn about dinosaurs. Can you imagine your childhood without dinosaurs? Never even seeing a picture of a skeleton? Mongolia is where the famous Velociraptors of Jurassic Park are found. Mongolia is where the first dinosaur nests were found. We need these children to know dinosaurs like we do. When they grow up, we want them to have an appreciation for dinosaurs so that we can continue to dig for dinosaurs in Mongolia in the future.
I’ve donated to the campaign myself for a t-shirt. It’ll be the first dinosaur t-shirt in my adult life, actually. Coffee mugs with dinosaurs drawn by paleoartist Emily Willoughby are available, as well as stickers, postcards, custom-poems, and more. It’s hard not to give back to the region that has given us so much. Velociraptors are the backbone of the Jurassic Park franchise, and some of these kids (and probably adults too) have no clue what they even look like. Donating to this campaign is like buying dinosaur memories for a child. What are your dinosaur memories worth? Bet it’s more than a t-shirt.
