The UCMP has hosted several Flat Stanleys this year, as part of the Year of Science 2009. Flat Stanley is a fictional character from a children’s book, written by Jeff Brown in 1964. In the original story, Stanley is a little boy who is flattened when a bulletin board above his bed falls on top of him. He finds that, in his new flattened state, he is able to have many great adventures by being mailed from place to place in an envelope. Inspired by this story, the Flat Stanley project began as a classroom exercise in an elementary school in Canada and has now grown into a communication network among primary school students around the world. In a variation of this idea, students in Piedmont, California made paper Flat Stanleys and sent them to Berkeley to learn about scientific research on campus. Three of these Stanleys came to visit the UCMP.
The first Stanley to visit in 2009 was hosted by Kaitlin Maguire, a member of the Barnosky lab. Kaitlin showed Stanley the skull of a Columbian mammoth from the Pleistocene of California, and took Stanley’s photo next to one of the mammoth’s teeth. You can check out Stanley’s full adventure with Kaitlin and the mammoth here.
The next Stanley was hosted by Jann Vendetti, a member of the Hickman Lab. Jann took Stanley with her to one of the classes taught in Integrative Biology, called Principles in Paleontology. Stanley got to see a lot of invertebrate fossils, and learned how paleontologists measure the size and shape of animals in the fossil record. See Stanley’s full adventure with Jann here .
The last Stanley to visit the UCMP was hosted by Susumu Tomiya, who is also a member of the Barnosky lab. Susumu introduced Stanley to Flat Darwin, whose real-life counterpart would have celebrated his 200th birthday this year! Flat Darwin took Stanley on a grand tour of the UCMP collections, with a special emphasis on the fossil mammals of South America. One of the highlights was the glyptodont, a giant, extinct relative of the armadillo. You can read about Stanley’s visit with Susumu, Flat Darwin, and the mammals of South America here.
This isn’t the first time Flat Stanley has visited the UCMP — to read about his previous adventures, click here.
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