  Have you heard about the “butterfly effect,” the idea that one small change can bring about big changes over time? This idea is important in the study of ecology, which deals with the interactions of living things and their environments. Each element of an ecosystem has its place. When one element is eliminated, it affects everything else. The Yellowstone ecosystem centered in Yellowstone National Park provides a great example. Late in the 20th century, biologists were worried about the aspen trees there. Aspens occur in clusters that are actually clones growing up from shared root systems. Some of the Yellowstone clones were hundreds of years old, but the old, dying trees weren’t being replaced by strong young shoots. It looked like they might just die out, and no one was sure why. When a severe drought in 1988 led to big wildfires in the park, the idea that fire might stimulate aspen growth proved wrong. Perhaps the elimination of wolves from the region in the early 20th century was to blame. Wolves? New trees? How could that be? Without wolves, the behavior of the Yellowstone elk had changed. No predators. No worry. So the elk became lazy, acting like cows, lying around in shaded areas along the rivers and creeks, munching contentedly on the juicy fresh growth of the willows and aspens. In 1995, after much political battling, wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone. The wolf population grew and the elk learned to be on the alert. As the wolves’ favorite food, the elk had to change their behavior to survive—no more relaxing by a stream where wolves could easy sneak up and make a meal of them! They had to move around and spend more time in open places where watching for hungry wolves was far easier. The wolves are changing the Yellowstone landscape in positive ways. The aspens and willows are coming back. Beavers, which had almost disappeared from some parts of the park, are returning. These rodents feed on aspens and willows and use them to build their dams and lodges. Beaver dams create ponds, and the ponds provide homes for hundreds of species of plants and animals, from algae and water striders to ducks and muskrats. The willows and aspen trees around the pond are nesting sites for songbirds and homes for insects and spiders, all thanks to the wolf. Welcome back, wolves!  This aspen shoot has been chewed to bits by elk. Dan Hartman  These aspen shoots have been allowed to grow strong and tall. Dan Hartman  Wolves on the hunt in Yellowstone. Dan Hartman  Now that the aspens and willows are returning, so are the beavers. Dan Hartman  Dorothy Hinshaw Patent's book, When the Wolves Returned: Restoring Nature's Balance in Yellowstone, is an IRA/CBC Teachers' Choices book, an ALA Notable Children's Book, A Book Sense Pick, and an Outstanding Science Trade Book for Children, as well as receiving the Orbis Pictus Honor Book Award. Booklist calls it "A great choice for elementary units about science and environmental protection," and Kirkus gave it a starred review. Click here to read the reviews. Dorothy Hinshaw Patent is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more. MLA 8 Citation Patent, Dorothy Hinshaw. "Everything Is Connected: The Butterfly Effect and the Wolf." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 27 Mar. 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/ Everything-is-Connected-The-Butterfly-Effect-and-the-Wolf. 
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Do you know that the Plains Indians lived in North America for centuries before they got horses? These people were nomads, moving from place to place through the seasons as they sought protection from winter weather and hunted for buffalo, their main source of food. Can you imagine how difficult it was, walking many miles in soft moccasins across the rough prairie ground with only dogs to help carry their possessions? The dogs dragged goods on a travois, a set of wooden poles strapped together. A big, strong dog could manage a load of just seventy-five pounds or less. It took an Indian band a long time to get from one place to another, and the people couldn’t bring very many things along. Then, in the 1500s, Spanish explorers and settlers brought horses with them to North America. Indian slaves in the Southwest took care of the horses on Spanish ranches but were forbidden to ride them. Of course they figured out how useful horses were, and soon the Apache tribe had horses. In 1680, the Indians rebelled against the Spanish, driving them out of New Mexico and forcing them to leave many horses behind. From then on, horses spread northward and by 1750, tribes all the way into Canada had horses. These powerful animals revolutionized Indian culture. With horses, the Indians could ride instead of walk. They could bring along more goods, as a horse could drag a travois load of three hundred pounds. Just five horses could transport everything needed by a family, including enough buffalo hides to make a big, comfortable tepee. Old or sick family members could be carried along on a travois as well. Just as the Indians were embracing the horse, European Americans were moving into Indian lands, forcing some tribes to move westward onto the prairie and adopt the horse culture. Within a generation, Indians became supreme horsemen and used horses to hunt buffalo and to wage warfare. They fought against one another as well as against the U.S. Army, which was trying to clear the way for white settlers to make their homes on the prairie. By the late 1800s, the Plains tribes had been beaten and forced to live on reservations. The Indians still value their horses, competing with them in rodeos and races as well as for recreation and transportation.  Horses made life much easier for the Plains Indians. People could ride the horses at the same time the horses pulled the travois that carried their goods. Moving camp, Edward Curtis, courtesy Library of Congress  The annual Crow Fair draws twenty to thirty thousand Indians from Canada and the U.S. to eastern Montana to celebrate and compete. Every morning, a parade of Indians showing off their beautiful costumes and horse gear passes through the camp. Wm. Munoz  These Crow chiefs proudly show off their costumes and beadwork for photographer Edward Curtis, who documented many Indian cultures during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Edward Curtis. Courtesy Library of Congress.  Every winter, a group of young Indians show their pride in their cultural traditions by challenging themselves to repeat the frigid 287-mile ride of Lakota Chief Big Foot and his band to Wounded Knee, South Dakota, where they were massacred by the U.S. Army in December, 1890. Indian Teens, Wm. Munoz  Dorothy Hinshaw Patent says about her book, The Horse and the Plains Indians: "This book was truly a labor of love and respect. Within a few years of acquiring horses after the Spanish brought them to America, Indians became among the greatest horsemen in the world and created vibrant new horse-related aspects to their cultures. I wanted to communicate these achievements to young people and to show them that despite all they have suffered at the hands of European American culture, the Indians heart and soul attachment to horses endures." For more information, click here. Dorothy Hinshaw Patent is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more. MLA 8 Citation Patent, Dorothy Hinshaw. "How Horses Revolutionized the Lives of the Plains Indians." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 5 Mar. 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/ How-Horses-Revolutionized-the-Lives-of-the-Plains-Indians.  
Do your feet sometimes smell rotten? Do you wish you could toss out your shoes and start with a new pair? We make jokes about smelly feet, but smell and feet have a very different relationship among some insects. Take butterflies. Have you ever watched a butterfly flit over a plant, gently touch its feet to a leaf, and then fly on to the next leaf? That butterfly isn’t being picky about where to land. It’s hunting for the right kind of leaf for laying its eggs. It’s “smelling” the leaf with its feet! Actually, we need to qualify that statement a bit. Some writers will say the insect is “smelling” the leaf while others may write that it’s “tasting” the leaf. Smelling and tasting are forms of “chemoreception,” or sensing of chemicals. Smell usually refers to sensing from a distance while tasting generally means actually touching the nerve cells that sense a chemical. We humans have cells in our noses that send messages to our brains about chemicals in the air. We call that our sense of smell. We have cells on our tongues that sense chemicals dissolved in liquid in our mouths. That’s taste. That butterfly doesn’t have a nose, and its mouth is a long tube for sucking up nectar from flowers. Its chemoreceptors are elsewhere, like on its feet, around its mouth, and on its antennae. Most butterflies lay their eggs on the plants that the hatched caterpillars will eat. Some species are very specific about what plants their young can feed on. Take the postman butterfly, which lives in Central and South America. Its caterpillars can only survive on certain species of passionflower vines. Other species are poisonous to their offspring. The female postman butterfly has dozens of special nerve cells on her feet called “gustatory sensilla.” Scientists think that when she touches gently down on a leaf, these cells can sense chemicals there that would be poisonous to her caterpillars. She avoids laying eggs on those leaves. But when she finds a plant that will nourish her young, she’ll alight and lay her eggs. Now take your shoes off and move your feet around on the floor. The only nerve endings on your feet are ones that sense touch. But then, you don’t need to be able to smell the ground you walk on. Imagine how gross it would be if your feet could smell the insides of your socks and shoes—yuck!  In these photographs taken through a microscope, you can see the sensory sensilla (arrow) on the feet of the female butterfly on the right, which the male on the left doesn't have. From PLoS Genet. Jul 2013; 9(7): e1003620.
 A dog’s nose is 300 times more powerful than a human nose, so it’s no wonder that dogs use their incredibly advanced sense of smell to do some very important jobs. In Super Sniffers, Dorothy Hinshaw Patent explores the various ways specific dogs have put their super sniffing ability to use: from bedbug sniffers to explosive detectors to life-saving allergy detectors . . . and more. This dynamic photo-essay includes first-hand accounts from the people who work closely with these amazing dogs. For more information, click here. Dorothy Hinshaw Patent is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more. MLA 8 Citation Patent, Dorothy Hinshaw. "Smelling Feet or Smelly Feet?" Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 23 Jan. 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/ Smelling-Feet-or-Smelly-Feet.    You may know that monarch butterfly populations east of the Rocky Mountains fly to sites in Mexico for the winter. But monarchs live in the west, too, and most of them overwinter in central and southern California. One of the largest western overwintering sites is California’s Pismo State Beach Butterfly Grove. From late October through February, visitors can watch monarch butterflies clinging to the leaves and branches of giant eucalyptus trees. The butterflies are in hibernation, feeding little if at all and with their internal systems slowed down. The warmth of the sun wakes them partially, and some flutter from one spot to another. When storms threaten, the monarchs cluster on branches inside the grove where the trees help break up the heavy rain and the power of high winds. Some may have left Canada in early September, arriving at the grove in October. They may have traveled 2,000 miles at a rate of 100 miles a day, flying as high as 10,000 feet above sea level. But it’s worth the journey. In this grove are conditions that suit them well—relative warmth, humidity, light and shade, and moderate temperatures as well as protection from stormy weather. As weather warms and days grow longer, the winter monarchs will mate, then begin the journey northward. But these individuals don’t make it back home. The females lay their eggs on milkweed plants, then die. The eggs hatch into tiny caterpillars that grow so fast on their leafy diet that, as one website states, it’s like a human baby growing to the size of an adult gray whale in two weeks! The caterpillar pupates and emerges later as a new butterfly which mates and travels further north. This process continues for four or five generations, until summer fades with shortening days. Then the next generation of winter monarchs hatches, repeating the cycle. How does the information for this amazing cycle pass through the generations? No one knows. Unfortunately, the western population of monarchs has declined drastically in recent years. Luckily, wherever you live, you can do things to help monarchs survive and thrive. Visit this site for more information.
 Some of the Monarchs don’t join the others but perch alone, at least for a while. The butterflies don't always stay in one place but flutter around now and then as you can see in this video.  Dorothy's new book has had rave reviews including one by Vicki Cobb. She went to Tasmania and saw what was happening. Now you can read the story. 
 You can see how little fruit is inside a wild banana. You probably eat bananas at least once a week—they are the most popular of all fruits, even surpassing the apple. But have you ever noticed that bananas have no seeds? Probably not. You just peel them and enjoy their soft, seedless flesh without even thinking about seeds. If you’d been strolling through a tropical forest in New Guinea thousands of years ago and reached up to pluck a wild banana snack, you wouldn’t have wanted to eat it. The banana ancestors had big hard seeds surrounded by a small amount of sweet flesh, not worth peeling. Sometimes, however, plants appeared with fruit that had no seeds. Over time, people cherished these seedless fruits and grew the plants for their own use. The banana plant sends up a central stalk surrounded by very large leaves, then flowers at the tip. The flowers produce a heavy load of bananas without being pollinated. Then the stalk dies. Meanwhile, the stalk sends out side shoots that become new plants. That’s a form of cloning, meaning that all of a banana plant’s progeny are genetically identical, both to their parent and to one another. The ancestors of the modern banana could reproduce in the usual way, so their seeds contained mixtures of DNA from the mother plant and DNA from another plant’s pollen. This “sexual reproduction” allows for the genes of the plants to be combined in new ways. If a disease came along, it might kill most of the plants, but some others could have natural resistance and survive. Because it lacks seeds, the banana has gotten into trouble. Back in the 1950s, an especially sweet and tasty variety called the Gros Michel was the commercial banana. But a devastating fungus came along and killed the plants and contaminated the soil. Growers then chose another variety, Cavendish, which resisted the disease. But now a wilt called Panama disease has shown up that kills the Cavendish plants. And because bananas lack genetic diversity and because they don’t develop seeds that mix up their genes, the Cavendish has no way of defending itself. Banana growers are doing what they can to stop the spread of the disease, however, and up to now they have been successful. But don’t be surprised if in a few years the bananas you buy look and taste different. Luckily, there are other varieties out there, like small “finger” bananas and larger red-skinned fruits, that you can already buy in places like Hawaii.
 Dorothy Hinshaw Patent's new nonfiction picture book about horses has a fresh focus: how people over the ages have decorated horses in special ways. Organized into three categories—warfare and hunting, performance and competition, performance, and ceremony—the book introduces horses such as the chariot-pulling war horse of the Persians to the rose-decorated winner of the Kentucky Derby. For more information, click here. Dorothy Hinshaw Patent is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more. MLA 8 Citation Patent, Dorothy Hinshaw. "The Flaw in the Seedless Banana." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 21 Dec. 2017, www.nonfictionminute.org/ the-nonfiction-minute/The-Flaw-in-the-Seedless-Banana. Accessed 21 Dec. 2017.  |
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For Vicki Cobb's BLOG (nonfiction book reviews, info on education, more), click here: Vicki's Blog *NEWSFLASH *
The NCSS-CBC Notable Social Studies Committee is pleased to inform you that 30 People Who Changed the World has been selected for Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2018, a cooperative project of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) & the Children’s Book Council Categories
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