6-year-old finds fossilized shark tooth at RI beach

Popular science writer Carl Sagan wrote that young kids start out in life with that " holy curiosity " of the born scientist. But ironically the public school system kills it by early adolescence . Anyway , what does this kid or any kid - fresh on earth - think about a fossil find MILLIONS of years old ? Just KNOWING that the earth and living creatures on it go back BILLIONS of years was only possible for civilized human beings in the past few centuries. When I was only ten years old, was I a little alarmed when told that our Sun would DIE in a few billion years ? Later in my high school years I learned that HOMO SAPIENS is barely a million years old . But the UNIVERSE is about 13 billion years old. Are you ever too young to appreciate the fact that WE all - and ALL living things - are just a moment in time ?That long dead shark , which once owned that fossil tooth in the hand of 6 year old Oliver Martinez , had its day in the sun, its MOMENT IN TIME . I will never forget that giant whale bone at the entrance to the Roger Williams Park Museum- just before giant paintings of Galileo and Copernicus.