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The following excerpts are actual answers given on history tests by children in 5th and 6th grade ages.  They were collected over a period of three years by two teachers. Ancient Egypt was old. It was inhabited by gypsies and mummies who all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert. The climate of the Sarah is such that all the inhabitants have to live elsewhere. The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn't have history. The Greeks also had myths.  A myth is a young female moth. Socrates was a famous old Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. He later died from an overdose of wedlock which is apparently poisonous. After his death, his career suffered a Dramatic decline. In the first Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled biscuits, and threw the java. The games were messier then than they show on TV now. Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted "hurrah!" and that was the end of the fighting for a long while. Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper which was very dangerous to all his men. The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays.  He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter. The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Madman Curie discovered radio. She was the first woman to do what she did. Other women have become scientists since her but they didn't get to find radios because they were already taken.

Link Of The Month

Why should we protect our nation’s rivers? Rivers provide essential habitat, clean water, recreational opportunities, drainage, and economic vitality, making them a community asset with quantifiable economic value. Visit the American Rivers website at http://www.americanrivers.org/economicbenefitsofriverprotection.html for a series of articles and links related to the economic benefits of river protection.

New Publications

Pennsylvania IPM Reference

Whether you are trying to identify what six-legged creature is damaging your tomato plants or determine if that yellow-striped beetle on your cucumbers is a pest, the Pennsylvania Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Program’s new publication “Identifying Vegetable Insect Pests in Pennsylvania” will help you find the answer. Targeted to the home gardener, the guide includes pictures and descriptions of vegetable pests commonly found in the garden and flower beds. It is available as a downloadable PDF file from the Pennsylvania IPM Program’s Web site at http://paipm.cas.psu.edu/pdf/vegpests.pdf. Of the hundreds of insect species that may be found in and around gardens, only a few species are pests. The guide is designed to allow the gardener to quickly identify common insect pests by matching a suspected pest with a picture. In addition to the pictures, the guide includes size indicators alongside color images of each pest. It also includes short descriptions of each pest and the plants it commonly targets. IPM aims to manage pests -- such as insects, diseases, weeds and animals -- by combining physical, biological and chemical tactics that are safe and environmentally compatible.

New AQUATOX Model

EPA’s Office of Water has released an enhanced version of AQUATOX, a user-friendly simulation model for aquatic ecosystems. It will help users evaluate and illustrate the causal links between the chemical and physical environment and the living systems that inhabit our waters. AQUATOX can predict the fate of pollutants and their effects on the ecosystem. While it’s been available for several years, the enhanced Release 2 allows a more complete and realistic representation of the ecosystem. AQUATOX is a valuable tool for ecologists, biologists, water quality modelers, and anyone involved in performing ecological risk assessments. You can download AQUATOX Release 2 and accompanying documentation at http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/models/aquatox/. CD-ROMs and hard copies of the documentation will soon be available from the National Service Center for Environmental Publications (NSCEP) at 1-800-490-9198 or from the Water Resources Center at 202-566-1729.

National Wetland Mitigation Action Plan Products

Federal agencies are continuing to work on the various products of the National Mitigation Action Plan. In the coming weeks there will be public notices published in the Federal Register soliciting public comment on the following products: On Site/Off Site & In-kind/Out-of-kind Guidance; Stream Mitigation Compendium; Analysis of Existing Performance Standards Research/Literature. For more information, visit the website at http://www.mitigationactionplan.gov/actionitem.html to view the status of various guidance documents, as well as links to completed NMAP items.

Low-Volume Roads Engineering BMP Field Guide

A "Low-Volume Roads Engineering Best Management Practices Field Guide" was produced by Conservation Management Institute/Virginia Tech and agency partners to provide an overview of the key planning, location, design, construction, and maintenance aspects of roads that can cause adverse environmental impacts and to list key ways to prevent those impacts. Best Management Practices are cost-effective by preventing failures and reducing maintenance needs and repair costs. This Guide presents many of these desirable practices, with use of many photos, drawings, and designer aids. This publication is currently available both in English and in a draft Spanish document through the International Road Federation website at http://zietlow.com/manual/gk1/web.doc. For more information regarding this project, contact Gordon Keller (gkeller@fs.fed.us) with the USFS.

Urban Subwatershed Restoration Manual

The Center for Watershed Protection (CWP) has been working to develop the Urban Subwatershed Restoration Manual (USRM), a practitioner's guide to restoring urban watersheds. Presented in a series of 11 manuals, the USRM presents practical and useful information on watershed restoration techniques. The manuals are targeted for planners, engineers, stream biologists and municipal officials. Each manual is illustrated and presents detailed field methods, practice specifications, costs, applicability and tips on implementation. While work on the USRM manuals continues to progress, three of the manuals have been completed. Thanks to a grant from the EPA Office of Water Management, the three completed manuals can be downloaded in .PDF format for free at http://www.cwp.org/USRM_verify.htm through September. The available manuals include: Manual 1: An Integrated Framework to Restore Small Urban Watersheds, Manual 10: The Unified Stream Assessment: A Users Manual, and Manual 11: The Unified Subwatershed and Site Reconnaissance: A Users Manual. Each of the three completed manuals can be ordered in color hard copies from the CWP for a nominal charge by accessing the website. Expect the remaining eight USRM manuals to be completed throughout the year.

New Jersey Nonindigenous Plant Report

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has recently released a report, “An Overview of Nonindigenous Plants in New Jersey.” This report provides background on the numbers and origins of nonindigenous species in New Jersey, discusses problems caused by harmful invasive species, describes current state and federal programs, and examines methods of control and prevention. Fact sheets on 27 of the most problematic invasive species have been developed to help guide management and control initiatives. To view the report in .pdf format, visit http://www.nj.gov/dep/parksandforests/natural/heritage/InvasiveReport.pdf.

Newsletter Editor: Rebecca L. Buerkett Newsletter Design and Layout: Dianne M. Brown