A T. rex named Sue

School officials have found a new way to make teachers feel younger.

They let students learn something from a real fossil.

Sue, the cast skeleton of a 65-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex on display at the Anniston Museum of Natural History, will be visited by thousands of school children during her four-month stay. Most of the students would make little more than a snack for the 15-foot-tall carnivore.

Museum officials said schools in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi already have booked enough tours to ensure that more than 10,000 students will see Sue over the 15 weeks the skeleton is on display here. The museum normally brings in about 10,000 to 12,000 in an entire year.

"The schools are really excited about it," said the museum's marketing manager, Margie Conner. "It's a great opportunity for their students to have some science up close and personal."

The first group to visit only had to cross McClellan Boulevard.

Saks Middle School brought all 400 students to the museum. Principal Wendy England said it was the first time in 30 years that the entire school had gone on a trip together.

England said she booked the "learning adventure" a year ago, and it plays right into the lesson plans of some classes.

"Their entire year of curriculum is here in the museum," England said of the school's sixth-graders. "Add Sue to that, and it's perfect."

The students all were given clipboards and scavenger-hunt quizzes they were to fill out as they went through the exhibits. Each student wore a purple, lime or blue shirt reading, "Saks Sees Sue."

Seventh-grade science teacher Connie Baker said she was linking the Sue visit to a lesson on bones.

"You can tell them all day long, 'These animals are huge,' but when they're here and they see a specimen in reality, they see how big these organisms were," Baker said.

Laura Serrano, leader of Christian Educators at Home of Anniston, a home-school support group, agreed.

"If you're able to see and touch and feel it really puts it in perspective for them," she said. "That puts an impression in their mind that can last a lifetime."

If the looks on the faces of the students Monday were any indication, the colossal skeleton left an impression. As the groups filed into Sue's exhibit, jaws went slack and eyes widened. The children crowded around the interactive stations, and some took pictures with disposable cameras.

Serrano's group is bringing 111 students, parents and teachers to the museum today.

"We're all excited," she said.

Serrano said despite some Christian sects' rejection of dinosaurs, no one in her group had objected to the trip. She said her children and many others are taught that dinosaurs existed, but not in the same time frame that scientists believe.

In the group of 250 families, Serrano said, there may be some who disagree, but no one had spoken negatively of the trip either in person or on the group's online message forums.

She said a group of 111 people is probably the biggest field trip the group has ever taken.

Conner said the museum is ready for the large groups and expects plenty more local groups to take advantage of the dinosaur next door.

"A lot of times field trips mean a long trip to Birmingham or Huntsville, and the bulk of the day is spent getting there," she said. "Now they can bring the fifth grade and then take them back and bring the sixth grade."