Category: Patent Dorothy Hinshaw

What's It Like Being a Wolf?

10/21/2022

Dorothy Hinshaw Patent
Nature's Animal Ambassador

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a wolf? You’re born in a cozy, dark den under the ground, probably along with at least one brother or sister. Your eyes are closed shut, but you can smell and feel your way over to your mother to drink sweet, warm milk from her teats. Your father and older brothers and sisters bring food from their hunts to feed your mother.

Your eyes open in about two weeks, but you can’t see much in the darkness of the den. You nap a lot, snuggled up to your siblings and your mom. Then, about a week later, your mother leads you all out of the den into the sunshine. How different it is up here! Now you explore the wild world, wandering among the trees, lapping water from a creek, wrestling and tumbling with your brothers and sisters.

After you get bigger and stronger, you and your family leave the den and move to a safe outdoor area. It’s scary at first, being in a strange new place with no dark den for comfort. An older brother or sister watches over you and the other pups while the rest of the family, or pack, goes hunting. When the hunters return you rush up and lick their faces and they share the meat they got on the hunt. All the older wolves in the pack let you climb all over them and nip their ears and tails while they take care of you, protecting you from danger.

All that good meat helps you grow into a big, strong wolf, with thick, shiny fur. In the fall, you go along on the hunt and learn how to find game and how best to catch it. Hunting is exciting but dangerous. You or other family members might get kicked by a deer or stomped on by a moose. But if you get injured, the other wolves take care of you until you recover. You are family, and family is what matters.

Grey wolf. © Dorothy Hinshaw Patent, 2014

How did the return of the wolves to Yellowstone Park save the park? That’s the riveting story Dorothy’s tells in When the Wolves Returned.

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. "What's It Like Being a Wolf?" Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 27 Sept. 2017, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/whats-it-like-being-a-wolf.

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Keeping in Touch

9/23/2022

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Dorothy Hinshaw Patent
Nature's Animal Ambassador

How often do you check your cell phone or email each day? Use Twitter or Facebook? Can you stand not to “stay in touch” for even one day? We’re used to being able to hear from people anywhere in the world at any time, with just a few taps on a keyboard or telephone pad.

Through most of human history people could only communicate when they were within shouting distance. When alphabets came along, our ancestors could create messages on stone or wood and later on parchment (made from animal skin), or paper, made from wood pulp. Then, of course, the message had to get from one person to another by way of a messenger. When public mail came along, it made that process much easier and more reliable.

That’s where things stood for a long time. Imagine being a soldier in 1804 joining explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their epic trek across the west to the Pacific Coast. This was territory almost totally unknown at the time to European Americans.

You’ve left behind your family and all your friends. Now you have no way of finding out what happened to those dear to you. Did your father or mother die? Did a sister get married? How many babies were born? Your loved ones get to be a bit luckier, since in the spring of 1805, the keel boat that carried the expedition to Indian villages for the winter is sent back down the Missouri River with a small crew, and you get a chance to write notes to your loved ones, reassuring them that you are okay.

A lot can happen during a 2½ year span like the one endured by members of the expedition! Finally, in September of 1806, you and your colleagues return to the St. Louis area and find out that most people assumed you were all dead. Now you must figure out as quickly as possible how to reconnect with family and friends. It won’t be easy, since they don’t know you are alive, and you don’t know where they are after so long. How can you even locate everyone you care about?

Think about it: If you didn’t have email or a phone of any kind, whose messages would you miss the most? And who would you most wish you could tell about these events in your life?

The Lewis and Clark Expedition followed the Missouri River through miles and miles of vast prairie like this one, full of amazing wild animals like these bison.

This postage stamp honors the 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition. And, no, they could not have used a stamp on a letter to send news home. The first US postage stamps weren't issued until 1847.

Dorothy has written about how the horse changed the lives of the Plains Indians and everything that followed.

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. "Keeping in Touch." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 4 Oct. 2017, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/keeping-in-touch.

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America's Rarest Pine Tree

5/25/2022

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Dorothy Hinshaw Patent
Nature’s Animal Ambassador

When we think of endangered species, we are likely to think “cheetah” or “grizzly bear” or some other big, familiar, and in-the-news animal. But unfortunately, just about any sort of living thing can enter the list of endangered life. Scientists fear that the continuing elimination of habitat by humans and the changing climate could result in the loss of a million or more species in the foreseeable future.

The Torrey pine, native to the coast of southern California, is on the endangered list. Before the city of San Diego and its suburbs developed, woodlands featuring this species thrived along the nearby rocky coast. The frequent cool afternoon fog helped the trees tolerate a climate where rain is scarce during the summer months.

Now, largely because of human development, this beautiful tree with open, spreading branches is critically endangered. There are just two areas left where these trees grow in the wild. Fewer than 5,000 individual trees live on tiny Santa Rosa Island off the Santa Barbara coast and in the Torrey Pines State Reserve on the San Diego coastline.

In addition to having an ever-shrinking natural habitat, the Torrey Pines have recently struggled to survive an onslaught of the five-spined engraver beetle, which bores through the bark and lays its eggs in the cambium layer of the tree. The beetle attack can result in shutting off the supply of water and nutrients to the tree, killing it. Healthy trees may be able to survive, but drought can weaken a tree, making it vulnerable to attack.

Torrey pines do not replenish themselves easily. They take their time to produce seeds. The male flowers develop in February as clusters of reddish finger-like structures on lower branches. Their pollen fertilizes the female blossoms, which look like tiny red cones. It takes about 3 ½ years for the cones to grow and the seeds to develop fully. Then the cones release seeds, but some may remain until the cone itself drops from the tree as long as ten years after pollination.

The Torrey Pines State Reserve works hard to protect these rare trees, but it may be too late. The increasing heat and dryness brought about by climate change could weaken the remaining wild trees, resulting in beetle damage and early death. Let’s hope these hardy beauties find a way to survive these difficult challenges.

The Torrey Pines State Reserve features a dramatic red-rock coastline where the Torrey pines nestle among the cliffs. Courtesy of California State Parks, 2019

You can see the abundant clusters of male pollen-producing “flowers” on these branches. Photo by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent photo

These dead branches are the result of a beetle attack on a Torrey pine in the Reserve. The Reserve has been successful at easing the attacks by luring the beetles into pheromone traps. Courtesy of California State Parks, 2019

The Torrey cones are stout and heavy, typically 3 to 6 inches long and broad, and contain large, hard-shelled, but edible, pine nuts. Photo by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent.

In The Call of the Osprey, Dorothy Hinshaw Patent's engrossing narrative nonfiction and William Muñoz's dramatic photos offer a stunning exploration of the mercury pollution in Montana that causes harm to humans and ospreys alike.
"Patent's lucid prose and Muñoz's clear color photos work together to document the efforts of the Montana Osprey Project... An exciting addition to a stellar series."
—School Library Journal

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Alex the Parrot, a Real Bird Brain

5/13/2022

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Dorothy Hinshaw Patent
Nature’s Animal Ambassador

The question “how smart are animals?” has puzzled many people for generations. Scientist Irene Pepperberg became intrigued with this problem after viewing NOVA TV programs about communication studies in apes and dolphins. Trained as a chemist, Irene decided then and there that her true passion was actually animal intelligence, not chemistry.

Irene plunged into learning what was already known and the revolutionary ideas of scientists who were changing how people thought about animals. At that time, in the early 1970s, people thought that animals didn’t think and make decisions but merely responded moment by moment to their environments. But researchers working with apes and dolphins were overturning that concept and showing that indeed, animals could think, solve problems, and act intelligently about what they had learned.

What about birds, Irene wondered? She had kept pet parakeets and knew they were smart and could learn to speak at least a few words. . She decided to study an African Grey parrot, a popular pet that can learn to pronounce words especially well.

She bought a young parrot, named him Alex, and got to work. To probe Alex’s mind, Irene needed to teach him to use words to describe his world. This took long, patient training. After a few years Alex could name objects and foods, such as a key, a piece of wood, or a banana. He also learned several colors, and soon could label an object by both its label and color, such as identifying “green key” or “yellow corn.” He learned to distinguish whether an object was made of wood, paper, or rawhide, and could distinguish shapes such as “three-cornered” or “four-corner.”

Alex also used his vocabulary to express his own desires. In the middle of an experimental session he might say “Want nut,” or “Wanna go shoulder.”

As the years passed, Alex kept learning. If Irene presented him with a tray of items of different numbers and colors—say 2 green keys, 4 blue keys, and 6 red keys—he could correctly answer the question “What color four?”

By the time he died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2007, Alex had learned more than 100 labels and showed understanding of many concepts. When people asked Irene why Alex was special, she’d reply, “Because a bird with a brain the size of a shelled walnut could do the kinds of things that young children do. And that changed our perception of what we mean by ‘bird brain.’ It changed the way we think about animal thinking.”

Alex ponders Irene’s questions about the shapes she is presenting to him. Photo by William Muñoz.

Irene is asking Alex a question such as, “What material is red and three-cornered?” The correct answer would be “leather.” Photo credit: William Muñoz

Alex wasn’t only Irene’s experimental subject.; they were also good friends. Photo by William Muñoz.

Alex isn't the only bird Dorothy has written about. This book explores a University of Montana research project using blood samples from osprey chicks to investigate the effects of heavy metal refuse from mining on the ecology of the Clark Fork River.
To learn more about The Call of the Osprey, go 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. "Alex the Parrot, a Real Bird Brain." Nonfiction
Minute, iNK Think Tank, 15 May 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/
the-nonfiction-minute/Alex-the-Parrot-a-Real-Bird-Brain.

1 Comment

Defining Weather, Global Warming, and Climate Change

4/27/2022

2 Comments

Dorothy Hinshaw Patent
Nature’s Animal Ambassador

People are confused. They hear the terms “global warming” and “climate change” tossed about without much explanation. We all talk about the weather, but what does that word actually mean, and how does it relate to these other terms?

NASA defines global warming: “Global warming is the increase in Earth’s average surface temperature due to rising levels of greenhouse gases.” So global warming is a measurable statistic. Record the temperature at many sites on Earth for a given year, add them up, and divide to get an average. Rising levels of greenhouse gases are also well measured. The famous “Keeling curve” of atmospheric CO2 begun in Hawaii in 1957 is the best example.

Climate change is more complicated. Climate change is a long-term change in the Earth’s climate and includes measures of the atmosphere, oceans, land, cryosphere (snow and ice), wind, precipitation, deforestation, wildfire, and more, as well as temperature. So, climate change is a more inclusive measure of many factors changing the Earth system, which is very different from a single statistic like the rise in temperature from global warming.

Then there’s the weather. What, exactly is the weather? That term refers to what’s going on in the atmosphere at a particular time and place. It includes the air temperature, wind speed, humidity, and precipitation. Weather happens day to day, while global warming is shown by recording day-to-day temperatures over a long period of time. Climate change is a long-term process that can result in drastic changes in conditions on our planet.

To sum up: Weather refers to what’s happening in the atmosphere at a given time and place over the course of days to months.

Global warming refers to an upward trend in the average temperature over a period of years to decades.

Climate change is a long-term process that can be influenced by changes in the average temperature but includes many other factors.

To watch a brief but amazing video of the affect of global warming and climate change over the next 20 years, click here.

Dorothy's recent book The Call of the Osprey, has been chosen as a Best Science Trade Book for Students by the National Science Teachers Association. It covers research being done in Western Montana by scientists at the University of Montana. Starting in the late 1800's, Butte, MT, at the headwaters of the Clark Fork River, was the largest copper mine in the U.S. The major result of the mining was two-fold—the electrification of America and the largest Superfund cleanup site in the U.S. Call of the Osprey deals not only with current research but also with the history of Butte and the lives of the scientists involved in the research. Click here to find out more.

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. "Defining Weather, Global Warming, and Climate Change."
     Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 16 Apr. 2018,
     www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/
     Defining-Weather-Global-Warming-and-Climate-Change.

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What's It Like Being a Wolf?

Keeping in Touch

America's Rarest Pine Tree

Alex the Parrot, a Real Bird Brain

Defining Weather, Global Warming, and Climate Change

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