Dinosaur Train “Beating the Heat/Flowers for Mom” Episode

Buddy wishes he could fly and cool off like his siblings. His mom fans him to help cool him off and sitting in the shade seems to help. Buddy wonders whether other dinosaurs have ways to cool off besides flying. His mom tells him about stegosaurus using the plates on their back to cool off. They decide to go back to the Jurassic period and visit a stegosaurus.

On the train they get a little bit of a lesson from the conductor about the difference between plates in the dining car and those on the stegosaurus. They then go through the time tunnel to the Jurassic and soon arrive at Stegosaurus Forest. They learn about their being no grass or flowers in the Jurassic and just a lot of low-lying herbs and ferns.

They meet a stegosaurus named Morris. Buddy counts there being 17 plates on the stegosaurus. Tiny and Buddy keep having to watch out for Morris’ tail because he forgets he has it and it kind of randomly flies around when he moves. Buddy then has a hypothesis moment about the wind blowing through the plates, which cools down the stegosaurus. He hypothesis is confirmed to be correct by Morris. They try using plates to cool themselves off, but it does not work because they are not connected to them.

Tiny asks Morris if the plates also serve as armor. Morris explains not really, but it does make them look bigger and sometimes scares off the meat eaters. Morris rejoins his friends who are moving along and Mom says it is getting later. They then take the Dinosaur Train back to their time period and home. While eating fish for dinner they tell their other siblings about how the stegosaurus use their plates to beat the heat.

In the Dr. Scott the Paleontologist segment that goes along with this episode he talks about not really knowing for sure how the stegosaurus plates were used, but they have hypotheses about what they were used for. He compares them to the modern animal the elephant in how they cool off.

The conductor then tells a little about the Jurassic period, such as the climate and the Stegosaurus living there. He then tells about learning about flowers in the next story.

Overall this is a great episode teaching about how different animals have different ways of cooling off. It is also a good example of the episodes with Buddy’s hypothesis curiosity.

This episode begins with Shiny playing the leader in follow the leader, but Don wants to be the leader instead. They almost end up trampling their mom’s flowers. Tiny wants to collect some flowers for their mom, as they are giving their mom the day off and calling it Mother’s Day. They decide to go off to the Big Pond to find presents for their mom. Tiny wants to find red flowers and the other siblings want to find shells and a big fish.

Dad takes them to the Big Pond via the Dinosaur Train. On their way to the Big Pond the conductor explains how their were no flowers in the Triassic and more plant life and little flowers came about in the Jurassic leading up to the abundance of flowers in their current time period, the Cretaceous. He also tells them to be on the lookout for bees around the flowers.

The flowers make Don sneeze and he goes off to get a fish. Their dad makes sure he can hear them from the different places they are looking for things (Don fishing, Tiny and Buddy looking for flowers, and Shiny looking for shells). Shiny separates her shells by shininess.

Buddy and Tiny try to find a red flower. They soon find bees and observe them smelling the different flowers. They wonder what the powder stuff in the middle of the flower that the bee is smelling is.Buddy notices the bees taking the stuff from the middle of the flower and thinks that is the part the bee likes best. Buddy thinks the bee likes to go to as many different flowers as it can. They decide to flower it and see if it leads them to a big red flower.

Their dad calls them all back and they still have not found a red flower, but just then the bee leads them to a red flower. Tiny does not want to pick them because the flowers are supposed to be looked at and not messed with. They grab a whole log with some of the flowers on it. Their dad teaches them about the bees getting nectar from the flowers and the bee spreading the flower’s pollen to help make more flowers. Back at their home they give their presents to their mom.

The Dr. Scott segment in this section is about bees and how they have been around since the Mesozoic. He explains about how the bees carry the pollen and helps the plants make more plants.

Overall this is an interesting episode because it teaches about the bee, which is still around today. It is also a nice plot about the dinosaurs doing something special for their mom for mother’s day without it seeming like a general holiday, since the actual holiday is a modern concept.