Innholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2018 i Cobblestone American History and Current Events for Kids and Children

Today, Everglades National Park (OPPOSITE) preserves only a portion of the original Everglades. The historic Everglades once included wetlands that stretched from the Kissimmee River to Lake Okeechobee and southward to Florida Bay. BELOW RIGHT: The different types of habitats in the Everglades are re-created on this map. BELOW LEFT: A modern satellite image of the lower Florida peninsula captures darkened portions south of Lake Okeechobee as the Everglades and Big Cypress Swamp. The red area near the lake is an agricultural area.…

As the United States began to protect large national parks, a young naturalist took notice. George Melendez Wright was working in Yosemite National Park. He worried that park managers were upsetting nature’s balance. Beginning in 1930, Wright traveled around the nation’s western parks to gather information. He discovered bison being treated as pets. He noted that coyotes and wolves were being killed because they hunted other animals. Open garbage dumps in the parks attracted bears. Wright proposed a new way of managing the parks: Allow the creatures that lived in them to exist in them without human interference. Wright strongly supported the idea of Everglades National Park. Like Ernest F. Coe and Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Wright saw the Everglades as a place in which the environment and the living things…

More than 50 native species of reptiles can be found in Everglades National Park. The list includes alligators, snakes, lizards, and many types of turtles. American alligators often are found in freshwater swamps and marshes, where they can remain hidden underwater. They also find refuge in deep freshwater pools of cypress tree clusters during the dry season of the winter months. They create gator holes by digging into the ground at the base of the cypress trees or in the marsh. In the early spring, the gator holes and their ability to hold water help sustain a wide range of wildlife. In March and April, alligators call out to each other in search of a mate. Although crocodiles look fierce, they are shy by nature. They feed primarily on fish.…

People have made huge changes to South Florida’s landscape over the last 100 years. Those changes made life easier for farmers. The changes also helped people build cities and towns, as well as roads connecting them. That was progress—for people. But the changes altered how water flows through the Everglades. As a result, the vast wetlands that once covered about 4,000 square miles of South Florida has been greatly reduced. Habitats in the Everglades changed. That put stresses on the plants and animals there. And too much stress could change the whole ecosystem. Climate change will add to the problems, with more severe weather and rising sea levels. The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan aims to fix some of the problems regarding water flow through South Florida. The 40-year plan won’t…

The Everglades The Everglades river goes on forever. It’s the only place in which crocs and gators live together. The Everglades has 360 types of birds. You may think that sounds absurd. The water can be nine feet high. It’s not close to reaching the sky. The Everglades has a lot of habitats. It is home to the Florida panther, which is a special cat. Bettie Kerr, age 8 Birmingham, Alabama About the Everglades There are lots of birds in the Everglades. The mangrove trees give you a lot of shade. The water is nine feet deep at its deepest point. If I saw an alligator, I wouldn’t move a joint. And there’s the Florida panther. I don’t think it would be a good dancer. The Everglades provides drinking water…

The best way to truly understand the Everglades is, of course, to visit Everglades National Park. The park has four different visitor centers, but the squirrels thought that the Shark Valley Visitor Center was the most exciting. It has a tower for sightseeing, a tram for getting around, and miles of paths for walking or for bicycling. The Colonel liked the information and displays at the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center. I liked Flamingo Visitor Center. Visitors can camp, hike, and canoe in the area. We took a boat tour and saw alligators, too. The squirrels were careful to keep their distance so that they would not become a snack! You also can visit virtually by checking out photo galleries, a webcam, and information about the area’s plants, animals, habitats,…

An extraordinary odyssey began in the frozen terrain of Asia. It ended thousands of miles away and thousands of years later in the hot, grassy wetlands of Florida. The journey was made possible by the largest land bridge in history. Created by nature, the 1,000-mile-wide expanse of earth is known today as Beringia. It existed in the frigid waters between Russia and Alaska. Over different periods of time, the melting and refreezing of glaciers caused Earth’s water level to rise and fall. During the periods of lower water levels, the land was exposed. Beasts and humans moved across it. (Scientists believe some of the early nomads may have traveled by sea, too.) Although those Paleo-Indians probably arrived around 15,000 years ago, they were not the first living things to make…

There are more than 40 native species of mammals in the Everglades, including bobcats, gray foxes, river otters, squirrels, opossums, bats, and mice. Finding the tracks of a Florida panther in the Everglades is exciting and rare. The big cats are not often seen. They roam the pinelands at night and stay out of sight. Among all the animals in the Everglades, the panther is the most endangered. There are only about 200 left, and their numbers are steadily decreasing. In the 19th century, a bounty was established allowing hunters to profit by capturing and killing the animals. Although the panther is at the top of the food chain, its shrinking habitat and the decreasing populations of small mammals to hunt contribute to its endangered status. Marsh rabbits once were…

Marjory Stoneman Douglas was 25 years old when she stepped off the train and into the Miami sun in 1915. At that time, Miami was just a frontier town in South Florida. Douglas was moving there to work for her father, who was the editor of the Miami Herald. The newspaper job marked the start of a prolific writing career—one that would play an important role in bringing attention to the region. Misfortune brought Douglas to Miami. An only child, she was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1890. Her family moved to Providence, Rhode Island, when she was three years old. When her parents separated, she lived with her mother in Massachusetts. In 1912, she earned a degree in English composition from Wellesley College. Her mother’s death shortly after her…

The small sizes of most insects make it difficult to determine their quantity and variety in the Everglades. Here are some common insects found in the park. Whirligig beetles can swim, dive, and fly! They swim in large groups, making fast, random circles on the water’s surface. They have two pairs of eyes. A flat pair is found on top, and one curved pair is found on its bottom side. Those feature enable the beetles to see above and below the water at the same time. Equipped with an air bubble under their stomachs, they use the bubble like a lung to help them breathe when they dive under water. They feed on insects that fall into the water and on mosquito larvae. Mosquitoes in the Everglades are just as…

Unlike other national parks in the United States, which preserve stunning scenery or remarkable geological features, Everglades National Park’s claim to fame is its biodiversity. Such a park became a reality largely thanks to the efforts of one man: Ernest F. “Tom” Coe. Coe was 60 years old when he and his wife, Anna, moved from New Haven, Connecticut, to Florida in 1925. Coe had a degree from Yale University’s School of Fine Arts. He had spent his life as a landscape architect designing gardens in New England. The chance to work with new types of plants and flowers in South Florida appealed to Coe. The Coes moved into a house in Coconut Grove, not far from Miami. Coe loved the outdoors. It didn’t take long for him to start…

Sssssseventeen Feet!” said the South Florida Water Management District’s Twitter post. In December 2017, hunter Jason Leon caught a 17-foot Burmese python in the Everglades. That big snake is a sign of a big problem: invasive species. Burmese pythons naturally live in Southeast Asia—roughly 8,800 miles from Florida. The snakes and some other problem species “are not here through any action of their own,” says Carli Segelson at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission. People are to blame. Many people got Burmese pythons as pets in the 1980s. As 20-inch youngsters, the snakes look cute. Leon’s catch was more than 10 times that long. Not only do pythons grow to be quite large, they also eat a lot. Some owners underestimated their abilities to care for their “pets.” They probably…

Unique places can be found around the world. Here are a few distinct destinations that emphasize natural surroundings. Great Barrier Reef Located along the coast of Queensland, Australia, the Great Barrier Reef is considered one of the seven natural wonders of the world. It’s made from billions of tiny organisms called coral polyps, which have grown on top of one another for nearly 500,000 years. It’s the world’s largest collection of coral and the only living thing that can be seen from outer space. The reef is a popular place for SCUBA diving. Visitors to the reef can see a colorful assortment of corals, sponges, and tropical fish. The reef is also home to mollusks, dolphins, rays, birds, sea turtles, and giant clams. Some of those clams are more than…

This month’s mystery hero was born in 1872 in New Jersey. Her parents relocated to Florida two years later. At that time, Florida was not the major tourist state it is today. Our hero’s childhood had elements of sadness and of purpose. Her mother died when she was nine years old. She and her sister were educated at St. Joseph Academy, a private boarding school in St. Augustine. Their father was a state senator, and he lived in the state capital, Tallahassee. The girls lived with their father during school vacations, and our young hero quickly learned how to interact with politicians. After graduating as valedictorian from the academy, she returned home and helped in her father’s political campaigns. At age 19, she fell in love and was married. Her…

Florida’s state animal is the Florida panther. It is the state’s most endangered symbol. It is also one of the most endangered mammals in the world. The creatures once roamed throughout the southeastern United States. As settlers arrived in North America in increasing numbers, they cleared the land to settle it. The panther’s natural habitat shrank and continues to shrink. Today, panthers inhabit a space that is less than five percent of the area that they once roamed. In addition, increased modern highway traffic causes accidents that injure and kill panthers. Most panther sightings occur in southern Florida. It is estimated that less than 200 Florida panthers remain. Males average about seven feet from nose to tail. They can weigh about 130 pounds. Females average six feet in length and…