REVIEW: Dinosaurs and the Bible by Northwest Treasures

Since we went on a cool field trip to a dinosaur museum in Glen Rose, TX recently, my 5th grader was really excited to review the online course called Dinosaurs and the Bible by Northwest Treasures!

WHAT IS IT?:

Dinosaurs and the Bible is an online video course consisting of a total of six approximately 20-minutes video lessons.  In addition to the video classes, there is also a downloadable worksheet with comprehension questions for each lesson, a final exam, and a complete answer guide.  It helps answer your questions that link the existence of dinosaurs with what we know about the bible and helps to prove the correlation through geological findings.  You can watch the trailer to find out more.

The lessons are delivered through the Vimeo app, and if you don’t have an account, you can get a Vimeo account for free.  You can add the app to your smart tv, tablet, or streaming device such a Roku or Fire Stick, or you can log in on the Vimeo website and watch on your computer.  The course is currently on sale for just $19.99 (regularly $39.99), and you’ll receive access to it for 6 months from the date of purchase.

I also received access to another course called Taking the Mystery Out of Geology.  This is a single episode that is 20 minutes in length.  This course is intended to help you work out geology as it relates to the bible and compare it with thoughts you might have after being exposed to evolutionary thinking.  You can watch the trailer to find out more.  This course can be purchased for just $5, and you will receive access for 3 months from the date of purchase. 

Both of these courses are intended for grades 5 to adult.

My primary focus for this review, though, is the Dinosaurs and the Bible course, so let me tell you about that!

OUR EXPERIENCE:

After our field trip to Dinosaur World in Granbury, TX earlier this year, Holden became more interested in learning about dinosaurs.  On that trip, the kids also got to dig for fossils in a trough full of sand, and they were so excited at all the things they found!  So when this review came up, I knew he would really be interested in learning more.  And of course, every Christian family has probably wondered at some point how dinosaurs fit into what they know of the bible!

The first episode, How We Got Our Modern View of Dinosaurs, talks about how dinosaurs came to be named, all about the first dinosaur fossils that were discovered, and who were the key players in studying dinosaur fossils at that time.  It also discusses modern geology, uniformitarianism, evolutionary ideas, paleontology, and how the modern view of dinosaurs differs from actual scientific discoveries. 

The second episode, The Classification of Dinosaurs, talks about how the animal classification system, how dinosaurs are classified today and why that may not be an accurate method, when dinosaurs were created in the bible, and more information on evolutionary ideas relating to dinosaurs.

The third episode, The Great Dinosaur Rush, talks about the period of time in the 1800’s when mass amounts of dinosaur fossils were discovered in large fossil beds.  It also discusses the first artistic likeness of a dinosaur that was published of the Brontosaurus and why that image has given us a false concept of the actual dinosaur (you’ll be surprised to learn that the head and certain feet were missing from the skeleton discovery, so the artist drew what he thought they might have looked like!).  It also gives some background on the two key figures in the study of dinosaurs at that time and how they came to compete with one another (there’s a rather comical story of how one died and bequeathed his skull to be saved so his competitor and former friend could compare it with the size of his own skull, supposedly proving the first guy was smarter because his skull was bigger!).  Holden and I laughed about that one.  Now that’s a real rivalry!

The fourth episode, The Extinction of the Dinosaurs, talks about the modern idea that the dinosaurs became extinct due to a comet or asteroid that crashed into the earth 65 million years ago as compared with the biblical account of The Flood.  It goes into how the large fossil beds always reveal disarticulated bones, meaning that they are never connected but are instead scattered and separated.  This indicates a catastrophic event, and the lesson explains how this could be due to the crushing effects caused by all the flood waters that picked up and deposited large amounts of sediment across large areas.  It goes on to compare the geological time table with a biblical time table that explains how the existence of dinosaurs fits in with our biblical knowledge and the understanding that earth is not millions of years old.  It talks about the impact The Flood had on the earth in terms of volcanoes, tectonic activity, and finally, climate change.

The fifth episode, Dinosaurs and the Ice Age, talks about conflicts people have about the Ice Age, how that would have affected the dinosaurs, when the Ice Age might have occurred, and why.  It goes on to explain how the great waters of the deep broke up, creating cracks in the earth’s crust, and flooding the earth and how the resulting climate change and amount of moisture in the air could have easily created snowpack for glaciers and the existence of the Ice Age.  This, thereby, explains what killed the remaining dinosaurs after The Flood.

The sixth episode, Fossils, Age, and Soft Tissue, talks about how geologists began to use fossils as time markers and how they began to use radiometric dating to determine the age of fossils and therefore the age of the earth.  We loved how it went on to explain the fallacy of radiometric dating because it once again relies on assumptions that are not proven by scientific methods.  Furthermore, it gives alternative reasons why radioactive levels may have been unstable after The Flood, which would eliminate the reliability of modern radiometric dating altogether.  It also discusses how some dinosaur specimens have been found containing soft tissues that never fossilized, and how the fact that the known rapid deterioration of soft tissues eliminates the theory of dinosaurs remains that are millions of years old.

Holden and I were totally fascinated with this educational series!  We learned lots of new-to-us information that just further supports what we already know in our hearts to be true based on our bible knowledge, but proves it to us with geological understanding.  It made perfect sense to us!  I can always support my beliefs with scripture, but to those who don’t fully believe in scripture, having this scientific understanding makes it easier to show the Truth to others who need something more to convince them.

We really appreciated the opportunity to learn from this course, and I would definitely recommend it to those who want to further understand how science and the bible are tied together in regards to the existence and extinction of dinosaurs.  The accompanying worksheets would make great comprehension exercises for an older child.  Since Holden is 10 and just starting 5th grade (so he’s at the lowest of the recommended age group), we used them as a springboard for discussion, and I took notes as we talked about the answers.  The final exam included 15 multiple choice questions that basically summarized the main ideas in the course, and I think anyone who watched the series could successfully answer those questions correctly.  It was a nice way to sum up and end our study!

As a supplement to this course, Northwest Treasures recommends and sells a dinosaur fossil kit.  Since Holden had enjoyed the fossil dig he did at Dinosaur World so much, I decided to reward him at the conclusion of the course with a small dinosaur dig kit to do at home since for him, finding the fossils is as much fun as the fossils themselves!  That was a fun way to wrap up our studies.

If you have a child who is younger than 5th grade, you might consider the course Geology for “Little Eyes” for PK-3rd grade.  If you have students at the high school level, you might consider the course called Northwest Treasures Curriculum Project.

Take a look at what other Crew members have to say about this and other courses from Northwest Treasures by clicking the banner below.