5th grader points out mistake @ Smithsonian

I came across an interesting article today. The title immediately caught my action.

Well it appears that an eleven year old from Allegan, Michigan caught an error in one of the Smithsonian’s displays called the Tower of Time during his visit. The Smithsonian is an educational and research institute that is composed of 19 museums, 9 research centers, and the National Zoo. Millions of people have seen the Tower of Time exhibit and not one of them reported any error; that is until Kenton Stufflebeam noticed a mistake.

The mistake was made in a notation that identified the Precambrian as an era. Kenton knew that was wrong. He recently learned about the Precambrian from his fifth grade teacher. The Precambrian is an informal term to include all geologic time from the beginning of the Earth to the beginning of the Cambrian period (570 million years ago). Kenton reported the mistake and weeks later received a letter from museum officials acknowledging the mistake and telling him that the solution would be to simply paint over the word “era.” His parents and teacher should be very proud of him; I know I would be. Sometimes, a child can see what no one else can.