Prehistoric life has fascinated children for generations. In 1993 computer-generated images first convincingly fleshed out the immense skeletal forms picked from rocks millions of years old. When Tyrannosaurus rex lumbered into view in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, audiences gasped. Big Daddy had arrived. Less than a decade later, the Isle of Wight has its own dinosaur experience. Dinosaur Isle, the new museum of palaeontology and geology at Sandown, focuses mainly on local prehistoric forms of life. So there’s no T Rex, which was a native of north America. There are, though, models of his smaller relatives, some still big enough to give visitors a real thrill.

But the initial impression of Dinosaur Isle is anything but thrilling. Display cases lining the walls of the entrance hall contain fossilised bones, skulls, snails and shells; all potentially interesting certainly, but to breathe life into them the museum needs to do far more than offer some uninspired captions and dull settings.

Things do liven up in the display hall, the centrepiece of which is a massive fleshed reconstruction of an iguanodon, probably the island’s most common dinosaur. A plant-eater, this beast doesn’t quite look at home against a background of roars, grunts and bird cries. It’s left to the seven-metre long, animatronic neovenator, jaws dripping with blood, that thrashes its tail and bellows mightily whenever humans approach to provide some real menace. Looking rather like the more familiar stegosaurus, an armoured polacanthus watches from a discreet distance.

Meanwhile, suspended from the ceiling, wicked-looking pterodactyls circle the scene. Less lifelike but equally interesting are a pair of wall-mounted skeletons that combine artificial fossil bones with genuine ones.

Illuminating and well-illustrated information boards are set at various points around the hall. But it is the interactive features that bring the most fun. While a sand pit comes complete with brushes and easily-found fossils, the Rub-a-Saurus invites children to make rubbings of things like tree ferns and iguanodon foot bones.

Players of The Extinction Game survive or die depending on species’ characteristics and climatic changes. Touchy-feely boxes (“Be brave! Find out what’s in the box!”) contain an iguanodon thumb, the replica claw of a sauropod and, much to some young visitors’ glee, a (reproduction) coprolite dropping.

Nosing around the primeval pong section is even better: available for a quick sniff are simulated rotting corpse, swamp, carnivore breath, herbivorous dinosaur and, to the relief of all, pine forest.

Prehistoric forms also feature strongly at the 3D Education and Adventure Centre at Osmington Bay, near Weymouth in Dorset, where some some quaintly dated chalets hint at the centre’s former life as a Pontin’s holiday camp.

But as part of a Jurassic coastline that has recently been granted World Heritage status, there is nothing but timeless beauty about the view across the bay, a stunning prospect shaped over millions of years of gradual change.

Heather Marston, the field studies product development manager, is all too aware of the advantages of such a site as opposed to the classroom. “As much - and as soon - as possible we get students out of the classroom and onto the shoreline where learning is so much more exciting. This is the best laboratory of all. Read the rocks, we tell them, and when they do they’re amazed at how good a time they can have and what they can learn.”

Not least about fossils and their environment, both core issues at key stages 2 and 3. With no shortage of ammonite, bracheopod and belemnite fossils around, children soon get to spot and identify various types and, eventually, to appreciate the loss of soft organic parts, burial in sediment and discovery after erosion.

These subjects form natural links for discussions and demonstrations of plate tectonics - the structures at Osmington Bay are the result of the collision of the African and Eurasian plates 40 million years ago. In addition, the formation of rock cycles, different forms of energy and the nature of fossil fuels - the clay found at Osmington is notable for its oil content - can also form part of the discussions.

Not only does every junior palaeontologist get to go home with a real fossil, they also get to record their findings and, using the excellent IT facilities, to create and present a short, annotated animation on fossil formation. As with all study sessions at Osmington, this one is carefully designed to meet the demands of the national curriculum.

It’s all a far cry from the past shoreline frolics of Fred Pontin’s holidaymakers. But it’s a fair bet that today’s visitors have easily as much fun as those of yesteryear.

DINO PLACES

Dinosaur Isle, Culver Parade, Sandown, Isle of Wight PO36 8QA; 01983 404344;www.dinosaur-isle.uk.com. Open 10am to 6pm, April-October; 10am to 4pm, November-March. Minimum group size 10, no maximum. Students pound;2.20, adults pound;4 The 3D Education and Adventure Centre offers a wide range of courses and activities for all levels and ages. Adventure courses include kayaking, abseiling and trampolining options, while Active-IT courses link IT with such activities as quad biking and archery. Three Field Study options are map skills, marine zonation and stream ecology.3D Education and Adventure Centre, Osmington Bay, Shortlake Lane, Weymouth, Dorset DT3 6EG. Tel 01305 836200; Fax 01305 835151; www.3d-education.co.uk. Prices start at pound;75 per pupil from 1 January to 16 February for three-night weekend. For details of two-night weekends and other prices phone 01273 676467