A tyrannosaurus rex shares the spotlight with Public Education Foundation director of communications and government affairs Donna Dean and third-grader Angel Scotch at Thomas Elementary School.steve andrascik/VIEW
A 17-foot baby tyrannosaurus rex shows its teeth as students cringe during an award presentation at Thomas Elementary School, 1560 E. Cherokee Ave.steve andrascik/VIEW
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It's not every day that a life-sized dinosaur comes traipsing through an elementary school, but fortunately the baby tyrannosaurus that visited Thomas Elementary School, 1560 E. Cherokee Ave., on Jan. 8 was not there to eat the third-graders.
Instead, the baby T-rex, actually a life-sized puppet that is part of the "Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience" show that recently visited the Thomas & Mack Center, was there to reward third-grader Angel Scotch for his winning essay, delivering 40 tickets to the traveling production.
The event was the culmination of a meeting of education and commerce between UNLV, the Thomas & Mack Center, the show and nonprofit group The Public Education Foundation.
The Public Education Foundation is a local group established in 1991 to help improve local schools, a task it felt was too big for the school district to undertake alone. Since the group's inception, it has raised more than $45 million to improve public schools in Southern Nevada. Among the ways they accomplished this were fundraising events, such as partnering with the Thomas & Mack Center and UNLV to bring "Walking with Dinosaurs" to town.
Fifty cents of each ticket sale went to The Public Education Foundation. In return, the foundation distributed educational materials to valley educators and organized the essay contest.
"Walking With Dinosaurs" is a 140-minute, live action show based on the popular, award-winning BBC production of the same name. In the film, a paleontologist walks among dinosaurs, making the sort of comments Jack Hannah or the late Steve Irwin might have, although instead of discussing the diet of the ring-tailed lemur or the mating habits of the cuddly echidna, the paleontologist discusses things like the herding instinct of the brachiosaurus.
On the screen, this is accomplished with some very clever, green-screen effects and state-of-the-art animation mixed with live backgrounds. On the stage, this is accomplished by a combination of radio controlled puppetry and cleverly designed full body puppets, such as the baby T-rex.
The show teamed up with The Public Education Foundation to hold a districtwide essay contest. The subject of the essay was "What lessons have we learned from the extinction of dinosaurs that might help us improve the world today?" Eighty-one essays were submitted from 29 schools. Two winners were selected -- Angel Scotch in the third- to fifth-grade category and sixth-grader Alec Fox from Becker Middle School in Summerlin in the sixth- to eighth-grade category. Both received 40 tickets so that they and their classmates could attend a Saturday matinee of the show.
"For kids to see a life-sized dinosaur is a real eye opener," said Donna Dean, director of communications for The Public Education Foundation. "It's one thing to see the numbers on a page, but quite another to be face to face with them."
In addition to the essay contest, the foundation also provided 1,000 tickets to the show for children attending at-risk schools and distributed a study guide to the show to teachers in the district.
According to tour master Jake Berry, the show is only a third of the way through its scheduled performances and organizers already are looking toward extending it.
"The tour is really open ended," Berry said. "We'd love to return to all of the venues at least a second time." The show's highlights include the 36-foot-tall adult tyrannosaurus and the 70-foot-long brachiosaurus, which stretches its neck over the audience in one part of the show, giving the audience a much closer look than any of them could expect.
"The show is fantastic, entertaining and educational," Berry said. "It's an amazing production to be involved with."
"If they return to Las Vegas, we'd love to partner with them again," Dean said. "It's a really delightful show."
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