ArcaMax

Recently, I was at Dinosaur National Monument, which straddles Utah and Colorado and is most famous for the 1,500 ancient bones exposed on the cliff face inside the Quarry Exhibit, which includes an 80-foot Wall of Bones. Nearby at the Utah Field House of the Natural History State Park Museum, kids can join hands-on digs and watch as scientists prepare fossils in their lab. There is a Children's Lab and an area where kids are encouraged to make up their own dinosaur stories.

There are other new interactive options for junior paleontologists, their parents and grandparents to explore this summer, even the chance to join a dig:

-- The new 31,000-square-foot fossil hall at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History boasts 700 fossil specimens and enables you to see how our actions are driving Earth's changing climate, as did long-ago geological events. The exhibit is designed to inspire a new generation of scientists, as visitors travel through ancient ecosystems.

-- The Wyoming Dinosaur Centerin Thermopolis, Wyoming, has 30 full-size skeletons and the chance to sign up for the Dig for a Day program on an active dig site. In August, Road Scholar offers a five-night paleontology adventures for grandparents and grandchildren at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center where you will join paleontologists on fossil hunts and then follow the bones to the preparation labs.

-- Meet SUE the T. rex at Chicago's Field Museum. At 40-foot long and 90 percent complete it's the largest and most complete T. rex in the world. Travel back 67 million years to South Dakota where SUE lived. Last year, SUE got scientific updates that offer a more accurate picture of the T. rex and, at the end of the year, it was moved into huge new digs in the Griffin Halls of Evolving Planet, along with interactives and animated videos. (SUE's gender, by the way, is unknown, though it has been named for Sue Hendrickson, who discovered it in 1990.

-- At the Dinosphere exhibit at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, staff will share updates on the progress of the Wyoming dig site and lab volunteers will bring fossils and samples from the dig site out to visitors and talk about what it's like to prep fossils in the lab.

The best part, of course, is to see kids of all ages so engaged in scientific exploration. "I love it all!" said Samira Walinski.

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(For more Taking the Kids, visit www.takingthekids.com and also follow "taking the kids" on www.twitter.com, Facebook and Instagram where Eileen Ogintz welcomes your questions and comments.)

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