Lansing - A group of more than 150 shivering junior high students gathered outside the Capitol on Wednesday to let legislators know what Michigan really needs - a state fossil.
Students carried pro-mastodon signs and held a huge drawing of a mastodon behind a podium set up on the Capitol steps. Mastodon “activists” read poems and led chants of “Mastodon for Michigan!” and “Go Mastodon!”
Students from the sixth and eighth grades traveled from Slauson Middle School in Ann Arbor to support Senate Bill 397, which simply states “to establish the mastodon as Michigan’s state fossil.”
Washtenaw Community College geology Professor Dave Thomas said there are plenty of good reasons why the state needs a fossil.
“There are even questions on the Michigan MEAP test that ask students about fossils and prehistoric life,” he said. “What a nice way to be able to integrate this by having a state fossil.”
Thomas first had the idea for a state fossil several years ago when he heard about other states that have state fossils and integrate them into their science classes.
“I wrote a letter to Thaddeus McCotter (R-Livonia) and discussed it with them,” Thomas said. “In April, Sen. McCotter introduced the bill and our campaign started.”
Thomas thought it would be fun to involve students in the campaign and contacted Jeff Bradley, an eighth-grade science teacher at Slauson.
“First, all we did was we were raising $1,000 for the University of Michigan Natural History Museum,” said Adam Lanseur, an eighth grader in Bradley’s class. “Then we decided that we wanted to pursue it more and make the mastodon the state fossil.”
Lanseur read an essay he wrote describing why the mastodon would make a great state fossil.
“Some people say we already have a state stone, and the petoskey is a fossil. But that’s just a tiny invertebrate,” Lanseur said. “The mastodon is a beast!”
Katherine Henrichs and Erica Jaffe, two of Lanseur’s classmates, wrote a song, “Five little mastodons,” for the event.
“So far they’ve been not wanting to pass the bill because Gov. (John) Engler thinks these kinds of bills are a waste of time,” Henrichs said. “But I think it can help elementary school kids be more interested in the history of our state.”
Bradley, their teacher, held several labs to excite the students about the mastodon, and Thomas sponsored a poster contest.
“Think how exciting it would be for our students and teachers to learn about our new Great Lakes state fossil,” Bradley said to the clustered students and parent helpers.
MSU Associate Professor and Michigan History magazine Editor Roger Rosentreter said anything that generates interest in Michigan’s state history is a good thing.
“It could generate enthusiasm and interest in Michigan in an aspect most of us don’t think too much about,” Rosentreter said. “The idea of state symbols is great; kids really respond to it.
“I can’t imagine that this would be a bad thing.”
