Research Experience for Teachers

John Hammond
Anacostia Senior High School
District of Columbia Public Schools
Washington, D.C. 20020

B.S. - Central State University, Wilberforce, Ohio
M.A. - Howard University

Richard Thorington, Jr., Ph.D.
Supervising Scientist
Department of Systematic Biology
Vertebrate Zoology, Mammals

"Integrating mathematics and
science offered by the RTP has inspired innovating ideas
for my classroom."

Body size of the tri-colored squirrel Callosciurus prevostii

With the rise in sea level resulting from the melting of glaciers, squirrels were isolated on islands of various sizes in Southeast Asia. Over time, the body size of the squirrels changed relative to the size of the islands they were located on. This research focused on gathering data from specimens of Callosciurus prevostii in the main collections of the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. and analyzing this data to determine how island size affects body size. The specimens examined were collected on Borneo, Sumatra, and the Malaysian Peninsula. Length of head and body was used as an indicator of overall size, because it is recorded on the field labels of nearly all museum specimens and because it is not subject to the variations caused by loss of tail vertebrae. Visual inspection of the measurements suggests that most were recorded to the nearest half centimeter, introducing a small amount of variability. Some specimens were originally measured to the nearest quarter inch. All measurements were converted to the millimeter for analysis. The data captured above was also compared to a smaller subspecies from Tembalan, to determine the mean and standard deviation for each.

This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Teachers Award Number EEC-973148, Supplement #11.

Letter of Gratitude