Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park is the largest US nature reserve. Located in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, it spans an area of 3,468.4 square miles (8,983 km2), bigger than Rhode Island or Delaware.

About 96 percent of the park is in Wyoming. Three percent is in Montana and one percent in Idaho.

The park comprises canyons, lakes, rivers, and mountain ranges. It is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features.

Yellowstone, widely held to be the first national park in the world, was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872.

The name was taken from the Yellowstone River, which flows through the park.

Although Yellowstone was not officially termed a "national park" in its establishing law, it was always termed such in practice and is widely held to be the first and oldest national park in the world.

The US Army ran Yellowstone Park until 1917 when the National Park Service was created.

Detailed pictorial map from 1904

Yellowstone Lake is one of the largest high-altitude lakes in North America and is centered over the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest supervolcano on the continent. The caldera is considered an active volcano. It has erupted with tremendous force several times in the last two million years, but experts say there is no immediate danger of eruption. Half of the world's geothermal features are in Yellowstone, fueled by this ongoing volcanism.

The park is the center of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, which is the largest remaining nearly intact ecosystem in the Earth's northern temperate zone. It includes many types of ecosystems, but the biggest is the subalpine forest.

The vast forests and grasslands include unique species of plants. It is the largest and most famous megafauna location in the continental United States.

Hundreds of species of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles have been documented in the park, including several that are either endangered or threatened.

The Yellowstone Park bison herd is the oldest and largest public bison herd in the United States. It is descended from a remnant population of 23 individual bison that survived a mass slaughter in the 19th century by hiding out in the Pelican Valley of Yellowstone Park.

About 600 grizzly bears live in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, with more than half living within Yellowstone.

There are over 30,000 elk—the largest number of any large mammal species in Yellowstone.

Yellowstone has more than 3,000 geysers and hot springs, including Old Faithful Geyser, one of the most popular features in the park. Old Faithful erupts approximately every 90 minutes.

Old Faithful. By Grahampurse 

It's possible for a human to dissolve in Yellowstone's hot springs. On June 7, 2016, Colin Scott slipped and tumbled into the acidic boiling waters of the Norris Geyser while looking for a hot spot to soak in. Scott had illegally ventured off the boardwalk and within 24hrs he dissolved.

There was a record of 4,257,177 recreational visitors to Yellowstone in 2016.

July is the busiest month for tourism at Yellowstone National Park.

At peak summer levels, 3,700 employees work for Yellowstone National Park concessionaires.

Hollywood legend Gary Cooper worked as a Yellowstone Park guide for several seasons before becoming an actor.

Waterfall

The Victoria Falls (also known as Mosi-oaTunya — The Smoke That Thunders) on the Zimbabwe-Zambia border is the largest waterfall in the world — and emits a water spray that can be seen 30 miles (48 km) away. It has a combined width of 1,708 metres (5,604 ft) and height of 108 metres (354 ft resulting in the world's largest sheet of falling water.

Victoria Falls Pixiebay

David Livingstone, the Scottish missionary and explorer, is believed to have been the first European to view Victoria Falls in 1855. He named the waterfall after Queen Victoria.

Victoria Falls is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.

The highest waterfall in the world, Angel Falls in Venezuela, has a height of 979 metres (3,212 ft). The water there plunges 2,648 feet (807 metres) to the ground. It is 17 times higher than Niagara Falls.

Angel Falls was named after U.S. pilot James Angel, who crashed there in 1935. The falls also inspired the setting for Pixar's movie Up.

Panoramic shot of Angel Falls. Wikipedia

The Kaieteur Falls in Guyana is the world’s widest single-drop waterfall. With an average flow rate of 663 cubic metres per second (23,400 cubic feet per second) it is among the most powerful waterfalls in the world.

San Rafael Falls in Ecuador disappeared in February 2020 after a massive sinkhole opened up upstream. The sinkhole diverted the water flow that used to feed the falls, leaving only a few small streams trickling down the original cliff face. It's a real shame, as the falls were a popular tourist destination and the tallest waterfall in the country. 

The second-highest waterfall in Canada doesn't have a name. It's known as ‘unnamed waterfall'.

Niagara Falls is made up of three waterfalls: American Falls, Bridal Veil Falls and Horseshoe Falls that straddle the international border between Canada and the United States between the province of Ontario and the state of New York.

Scientists are mystified by Devil's Kettle Falls in Minnesota's Judge C. R. Magney State Park. No one knows where the second half of the waterfall, which drops into a deep hole, ends up.

The ancient Romans built an artificial waterfall which to this day is the tallest man-made waterfall in the world. The Cascata delle Marmore (Marmore Falls)'s total height is 165 m (541 feet). It is located 4.8 miles (7.7 km) from Terni, a provincial capital of the Italian region of Umbria.

Cascate delle Marmore (TR)

The most famous water organ of the 16th century was at the Villa d'Este in Tivoli, Italy. It was about 6 metres high and was powered by a beautiful waterfall.

There are only two horizontal waterfalls in the world, and both are located in Western Australia.

There is a waterfall that pours slowly out of the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valley that runs as red as blood. It's actually oxidized salt water.

Three Amazon Basin waterfalls are at least two-thousand feet 9600 metres) long from top to bottom.

Soil

Soil is loose material that lies on top of the land. It is a mixture of many different things including minerals, organic matter, water and gas.

A typical soil is about 50% solids (45% mineral and 5% organic matter), and 50% voids of which half is occupied by water and half by gas.

Because soil holds water and nutrients, it is an ideal place for plants to grow.

A, B, and C in the picture below represent the soil profile, a notation firstly coined by Vasily Dokuchaev, the father of pedology; A is the topsoil; B is a regolith; C is a saprolite, a less-weathered regolith; the bottom-most layer represents the bedrock.

By Carlosblh -  Wikipedia

The Romans believed that the smell of freshly turned soil was so beneficial and wholesome for invalids that they put clods of earth into their beds to help revive their spirits.

In ancient Egypt pigs were kept as scavengers. They loosened the soil by their rooting and so prepared it for planting.

The Amazon Rainforest area originally had terrible farming soil, until indigenous people invented a "superdirt" which remains fertile for thousands of years, renews and propagates by itself, and may currently cover as much as 10% of the Amazon basin.

Gilbert White (1720-93) was a British naturalist and clergyman. His classic Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1788) gave detailed descriptions, in an elegantly literary style, of wildlife and nature, including the important function of the humble earthworm in turning earth into fertile soil.

George Washington allegedly said before his death that he, "would never set foot on English soil again," so when they erected a statue of him in London, they put US soil under the statue to honor that claim.

World Soil Day (WSD) is held annually on December 5 as a means to focus attention on the importance of healthy soil and to advocate for the sustainable management of soil resources.

An international day to celebrate Soil was recommended by the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS) in 2002. The Food and Agriculture Organization Conference unanimously endorsed World Soil Day in June 2013 and requested its official adoption at the 68th UN General Assembly. In December 2013, the UN General Assembly responded by designating December 5, 2014 as the first official World Soil Day.

The date of December 5 was chosen for World Soil Day because it corresponds with the official birthday of the late H.M. King Bhumibol Adulyadej, King of Thailand, who was one of the main proponents of this initiative.

A local folk remedy in Boho, Ireland was to place soil from the local church under a pillow while you slept to cure infections. In 2018 a microbiologist found the churchyard's soil contains a previously unknown strain of streptomyces which can be used to create antibiotics.

The soil in your back garden is two million years old.

Pixiebay

Soil contains sedimentary DNA—the leftovers of dead plants and animals, and sloughed-off skin, hair and feathers of living ones.

It takes as much as 1,000 years to form one centimeter of soil—and the Earth is losing soil at the rate of 30 soccer fields per minute.

1m² of soil can hold a billion living things, including insects, spiders, worms, centipedes, fungi, and tens of thousands of bacteria.

There are 10,000,000,000 bacteria in a gram of soil.

The average fully detached American home has about two tonnes of earthworms crawling through the soil in the yard.

Close up of an earthworm in garden soil. Wikipedia

Soil is one of two main components of Earth — the other being oceans — where life is active. Human life depends on healthy soil.

Soil is not a renewable resource. Human life depends on healthy soil, just like it depends on clean air and clean water, but losses of soil cannot be regained within a lifetime.

The orange color of the soil on the island of Ibiza comes from the tannin in the pine needles that fall from its many pine trees.

The Earth's name comes from the Anglo-Saxon word erda which means ground or soil.

The soil on Mars is perfect for growing asparagus.

Source UN

Snowflake

ETMOLOGY

The word 'snowflake' dates back to 1734.

The English have had at least six words for snowflake: flaughen, flaw, flight, flother, snowblossom and snowflake itself.

Freshly fallen snowflakes By Jason Hollinger 

The first time “snowflake” was used in its current form to describe someone sensitive, fragile, and needing to be coddled was in the 1999 movie Fight Club.

COMPOSITION

The most basic snowflake is a six-sided ice crystal. Tiny ice crystals fall and join with others to form a snowflake.

Broadly, snowflakes are not unique. Most snowflakes have six sides because the molecules that make them up are hexagon-shaped.

The characteristic six branches of a snowflake. By Charles Schmitt

Snowflakes come in one of 35 general shapes according to temperature and humidity. Some of their different shapes are called hexagonal plate, irregular column, stellar plate or spatial dendrites.

According to physicists, it's actually true that no two snowflakes are alike when it comes to complex snowflakes. The temperature greatly affects how the snowflake forms, so while the simplest hexagonal crystals may look alike, more complicated beauties each have their own unique shapes.

Two snowflakes can be atomically identical, but the number of possible snowflake structures exceeds the number of atoms in the universe, so we say the odds are virtually zero.

Snowflakes are not at all white. They are actually translucent, where light is reflected rather than passed through. Because of the snowflake's tiny surface, the light scatters in so many directions that it can't absorb or reflect consistently, and the color comes back as white.

Snow is also made of sleet, which is created when snowflakes pass through the atmosphere and melt a little by the time they hit the ground.

The size of a snowflake depends on how many crystals hook together. Most snowflakes are about 1/2-inch across.

When coal heated homes and factories, coal dust in the air was absorbed by clouds and led to gray snow.

Almost every snow crystal has a tiny mote of dust at its center which can be anything from volcanic ash to a particle from outer space.

Snowflakes often look pink in Prince Edward Island, Canada, thanks to the red clay.

Snowflakes fall at about 1.5 mph (2.4 kph) and take roughly an hour to reach the ground.

HISTORY

The first known photograph of a snowflake was taken on January 15, 1885, by Wilson Bentley, a farmer and self-taught meteorologist from Vermont. He ingeniously combined a bellows camera with a microscope to capture the intricate details of these fleeting ice crystals. Initially, his photographs were met with skepticism, but over time, Bentley amassed over 5,000 images, revealing the astounding variety and unique nature of every snowflake. 

A picture of a Snow Crystal taken by Wilson Bentley, "The Snowflake Man."

The world's largest snowflakes were reported during a snowstorm at Fort Keogh, Montana on January 28, 1887. They were 15 inches (38 cm) wide and 8 inches (20 cm) thick. This event was recorded by a rancher and Fort Keogh's official weather observer, Captain J. P. Finley. The snowflakes were described as being "larger than milk pans" and "as large as a big saucer." 

1 million billion snowflakes fall on the planet every single second.

Sources Heraldnet, ABC7NY

Science

Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes understanding about the natural world. in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.

Facts about the natural world have been described since classical antiquity. Aristotle wrote that the truth can be found through observation and induction. This was his scientific method. Socrates' example of applying philosophy to the study of human things, including human knowledge itself was a turning point in the history of early philosophical science.

The School of Athens by Raphael. Aristotle is pictured in blue in the centre arch

Scientific methods have been used since the Middle Ages. The English philosopher and Franciscan friar Roger Bacon, for instance, placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empirical methods.

The dawn of modern science is often traced back to the early modern period and in particular to the scientific revolution that took place in 17th-century Europe. During this period centuries scientists began to formulate knowledge in terms of laws of nature such as Sir Isaac Newton's laws of motion.

Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, Christopher Wren and other leading scientists founded a learned society now known as the Royal Society at London's Gresham College on November 28, 1660.

Not surprisingly, active Christians, with their interest in God's creation, brought the society into existence. In fact, its membership was overwhelmingly Puritan in makeup. It grew out of the meetings of the "Invisible College" who gathered in the late 1640s at the home of the chemist Robert Boyle's favorite sister, Katherine. She supported the Parliamentarians (and Puritans) in the revolt against Charles I. Of deep intelligence herself, Boyle welcomed the group into her house so that she might share the new findings.

When the Royal Society was chartered by King Charles II of England on July 15, 1662, it was the first scientific society in history.

The first joint Secretary of the Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg, published the first issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the world's longest-running scientific journal on March 6, 1665.

Title page of 1st edition of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, by Henry Oldenburg

Over the course of the 19th century, the word "science" became increasingly associated with the scientific method itself, as a way to study the natural world, including physics, chemistry, geology and biology.

The term `biology' was coined around 1800, by, amongst others, Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus, a professor at Bremen, and the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck.

The term scientist was first used by theologian, philosopher and historian of science William Whewell in 1840. He meant it to distinguish those who sought knowledge on nature from those who sought other types of knowledge. Previously, people investigating nature called themselves "natural philosophers".

"Zohnerism", the use of true fact(s) to lead a scientifically ignorant public to a false conclusion, was coined in 1997 after 14-yr-old Nathan Zohner gathered petitions to ban the ''dangerous chemical dihydrogen monoxide'' (water) from school as the basis of his science project, titled "How Gullible Are We?"

Modern science is usually divided into separate areas of study, such as astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, mathematics and physics.

Scientists in a laboratory of the University of La Rioja.

The Bible described many scientific truths in the Old Testament, thousands of years before man discovered them. Here are some examples:

Scientific Fact or Principle Bible reference Date of discovery by man

Life originated in the sea Genesis 1 19th Century
Man was the last animal created Genesis 1 15th Century
The Earth is held in place by invisible forces Job 26:7 1650
The Earth is round Isaiah 40:22 15th Century

"The Blue Marble" is a famous photograph of the Earth 

Certain animals carry diseases harmful to man Leviticus 11 16th Century
Quarantine for disease control Leviticus 13 17th Century
Blood is necessary for life Leviticus 17:11 19th Century
Oceans have natural paths in them Psalms 8:8 1854
Mountain ranges on ocean floor Job 2 1950s
Light is a particle and has mass (a photon) Job 38:19 1932
Radio astronomy (stars give off signals) Job 38:7 1945
Infinite number of stars exist Genesis 15:5 1940
Stars move through space Job 38:32 19th Century
Plants use sunlight to manufacture food Job 8:16 1920.

Here is a list of songs about science.

Source Christianity

National Park

There are 58 national parks of the United States operated by the National Park Service, an agency of the Department of the Interior. National parks must be established by an act of the United States Congress. These parks combined protect more than 51,900,000 acres (210,000 km2) in twenty-seven states and two territories.

Yellowstone National Park was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872.  It spans an area of 3,468.4 square miles (8,983 km2), comprising lakes, canyons, rivers, and mountain ranges

Detailed pictorial map from 1904

Although Yellowstone was not officially termed a "national park" in its establishing law, it was always termed such in practice and is widely held to be the first and oldest national park in the world.

The first area to use "national park" in its creation legislation was the US's Mackinac Island, in 1875.

At the urging of preservationist John Muir and editor of Century Magazine, Robert Underwood Johnson, the United States Congress established Yosemite National Park in California on October 1, 1890. The park reaches across the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

View of Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View in Yosemite National Park,. By Diliff 

During his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt signed into law the creation of five National Parks.

Parks Canada, the world's first national park service, was established on May 19, 1911 under the Canadian Department of the Interior. Since its creation, its name has changed, known variously as the Dominion Parks Branch, National Parks Branch, Parks Canada, Environment Canada - Parks Branch, and the Canadian Parks Service, before a return to Parks Canada in 1998.

President Woodrow Wilson signed the act creating the National Park Service on August 25, 1916. It was established to manage all the national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties around the United States.

President Wilson signed an act of the U.S. Congress in 1919 establishing most of the Grand Canyon as a United States National Park.

Grand Canyon

President Calvin Coolidge signed an Executive Order in 1929 establishing the 96,000 acre Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

The Peak District was designated the UK’s first National Park on April 17, 1951.

Peak District

The newest U.S. national park is Great Sand Dunes, established in 2004, which like many other national parks was previously a national monument.

Donald Trump donated his first-quarter presidential salary of $78,000 to the US National Parks Service in 2017 only days after announcing $2 billion in cuts to the department that funds it.

There are 113,000 National Parks in the world covering six per cent of the Earth’s land surface.

England’s 10 National Parks cover more than nine per cent of the country.

Northeast Greenland National Park is the world's national park. Established in 1974 and expanded to its present size in 1988, it protects 972,001 km2 (375,000 sq mi of the interior and northeastern coast of Greenland. The park is bigger than all but 29 countries in the world and features 5000 - 15,000 Musk Oxen with no permanent human population. It is overseen by the Greenland Department of Environment and Nature.

Zackenberg Station, Northeast Greenland National Park

The Great Smoky Mountains, straddling Tennessee and North Carolina, was the most visited national park in the U.S. in 2015 with 10,712,674 visitors.

The US's biggest park is Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska. It was established in 1980 and it contains 13.2 million acres.

The least-visited national park in the U.S. is the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve in Alaska, which lies entirely north of the Arctic Circle and has "no established roads, trails, visitor facilities, or campgrounds."

The Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota is the only American national park named directly after a single person.

The Brasília National Park is a national park located 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from the centre of the Brazilian capital city of Brasília. The park covers an area of 423.83 square kilometres (163.64 sq mi), with territory spanning the suburbs of Brasilia, Brazlândia and Sobradinho and the municipality of Padre Bernardo. It is the largest park in the world which is situated in an urbanized area.

"Moyenne Island" is a small uninhabited island in Seychelles which a certain Brendon Grimshaw bought for £8,000 in 1962. With help from a partner, Rene Antoine Lafortune, Grimshaw transported and bred roughly 120 tortoises onto the island which is now the world's smallest national park

The Miami area is the only metropolitan area surrounded by two national parks — Everglades to the west, Biscayne to the east.

In October 1999 Jan Davis, who protested the banning of BASE jumping at national parks due to safety concerns, by BASE jumping off El Capitan in Yosemite National Park . Her parachute failed to open and she died.

Migration

At least 4,000 species of bird are regular migrants, which is about 40 percent of the total number of birds in the world.

When Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean, he remembered that the Portuguese had discovered the Azores by studying migrating birds. So the crafty captain decided to follow the birds' flight line.

For millennia, Europeans didn't really understand where birds went in the winter. Scientists finally solved the mystery in 1822 when a stork impaled by Central African spear was discovered by a hunter near Mecklenburg, Germany.

A Polish environmental charity put a SIM card in a GPS tracker to follow the migratory pattern of a white stork named Kajtka, in April 2017. They lost track of the stork and later received a phone bill for $2,700; someone in Sudan had taken the SIM from the tracker and made over 20 hours of calls.

A female shorebird was tracked by satellite tag and found to fly 7,145 miles in nine days from Alaska to New Zealand without stopping - the longest non stop bird migration ever recorded.

Arctic terns take the prize for the longest migration of any bird. It can fly a round trip from its Arctic breeding grounds to the Antarctic and back. The shortest distance between these locations is 19,000 km (12,000 mi).

An Arctic tern from the Farne Islands off Northumberland, England clocked up the longest migration ever recorded. The tiny bird's meandering journey to Antarctica and back saw it clock up 59,650 miles, more than twice the circumference of the planet.

Arctic Terns

Migratory species of crane can fly at heights of up to 32,000 feet, a record among birds.

In ancient times it was thought that swallows hibernated in winter. In fact they migrate, flying 12,000 miles to southern Africa and back, covering 200 miles a day and crossing two continents and 14 countries.

The Serengeti 'great migration' is an annual circular pattern of movement with some 1.7 million wildebeest and hundreds of thousands of other large game animals including gazelles and zebra.  It begins and ends in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area of the southern Serengeti in Tanzania and is a natural phenomenon determined by the availability of grazing.

Wildebeests crossing the river during the Serengeti migration

A "super generation" of monarch butterflies migrate more than 3,000 miles from northern USA/Canada to Mexico in the fall. The following spring, it takes four or five generations of monarch butterflies to complete the annual return journey.

The grey whale migrates 12,500 miles from the Arctic to Mexico and back every year.

Many species in the sea have a daily migration. Plankton go up for the day where there is light, and down at night, where they are less easy to find.

Chunyun refers to the travel season surrounding Chinese New Year. It starts around 15 days before New Year's Day and lasts for roughly 40 days. During this period, there's a massive movement of people within China as migrant workers in the cities grab the chance to return home to see their families. It's considered the world's largest annual human migration.

Leaf

Regardless of climate, tree leaves maintain an internal temperature of 70 degrees F (21 degrees C), which is the perfect temperature for photosynthesis.

In plant growth, it has been observed that each successive leaf on the stems of many plants is turned from the previous leaf by the golden angle, approximately 137.5°, an angle that purportedly maximizes leaves' sun-collecting power.

It is estimated that your chances of finding a four-leaf clover on the first try are 1 in 10,000.

Evergreen trees will not lose their leaves in the fall like deciduous trees. Their leaves, also called needles, are covered with a thick wax. This wax protects the inner components of the needles, preventing them from freezing.

Leaves turn yellow and orange then brown in autumn as the shorter days bring less chlorophyll-producing sunlight.

The leaves of the Ficus religiosa tree move continuously even when the air around is still and no wind is blowing. This phenomenon can be explained due to the long leaf stalk and the broad leaf structure.

A lotus leaf is able to self-clean by causing water to bead up and collect dirt on its ultrahydrophobic surface

Raphia palm tree have got the largest leaves; one leaf can grow up to 20 meters.

Psithurism is the sound of rustling leaves.

Raking your leaves destroys ecosystems. Fallen leaves create a natural layer that box turtles, butterflies, chipmunks, moths, salamanders, shrews, toads, worms, and other species rely on for food and shelter.

The actor Joaquin Phoenix began calling himself "Leaf" as a child, having been inspired by spending time outdoors raking leaves and desiring to have a nature-related name like his siblings. This became the name he used as a child actor, until he changed it back to Joaquin at age 15.

Forest

FOREST IN HISTORY

The word forest comes from the Latin foris meaning “out of doors”.

By Donar Reiskoffer, Wikipedia Commons

William the Conqueror cleared 225 Saxon villages during his reign to create the New Forest in southern England, which became a royal hunting area.

William the Conqueror's son, William Rufus, succeeded his father to the throne in 1087. Thirteen years later he was killed in a hunting accident in the New Forest. There is a legend that claims the king died because locals had placed a curse on him for stealing their land.

The Charter of the Forest, issued on November 6, 1217 by King Henry III of England, was a foundational legal document that restored and protected the rights of common people to access royal forests, which were vast tracts of land designated by the monarchy for hunting and royal use. This charter was closely related to the Magna Carta, which had been signed two years earlier in 1215, as both sought to curb the crown’s power over common resources and address the grievances of free men against royal restrictions.

The destruction under Genghis Khan may have scrubbed as much as 700 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere by allowing forests to regrow on previously populated and cultivated land.

Louis XIV's minister of finance had the huge Forest of Troncais created in 1670 to provide the future French Navy with a supply of oak masts. When the forest reached maturity 250 years later, the navy was busy switching to steam ships.

Shoshone National Forest is the first federally protected National Forest in the United States and covers nearly 2,500,000 acres (1,000,000 ha) in the state of Wyoming. Originally Yellowstone Park Timberland Reserve, it was established by President Benjamin Harrison on March 30, 1891. It was renamed Shoshone National Forest on September 13, 1902.

During his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt established 150 National Forests.

On September 24, 1950 forest fires blacked out the sun over portions of Canada and New England. A blue moon was seen as far away as Europe.

The average distance between patches of forest in the U.S. increased by nearly 1,690 feet—or 14%—between 1992 and 2001.

The International Day of Forests, March 21, was established by resolution of the United Nations General Assembly on November 28, 2012. Each year, various events celebrate and raise awareness of the importance of all types of forests, and trees outside forests, for the benefit of current and future generations.

FUN FOREST FACTS

Over two million square miles of the Amazon basin is virgin rain forest, containing 30% of all known plant and animal species.

The Amazon rain forest is considered by many to be the world’s largest, containing one-fifth of the world’s freshwater reserves and producing one-third of the earth’s oxygen.

The Taiga region in the far north, covering much of Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia and Russia, is considered by some to be the world’s largest forest.

Around one third of all the trees on earth are conifers in the Taiga.

A forest the size of Wales is needed to supply the paper used in the UK every year.

Since ancient times, it is estimated that the world has lost 80 per cent of its forests.

Due to the deforestation of the forests in North China, over one million tons of sands blows into Beijing from the Gobi desert. It sometimes causes the sky to turn yellow.

China has planted over 500 thousand square kilometers (193,000 square miles) of forest since 1978 to combat the expansion of the Gobi Desert making it the largest forest plantation in the world.

New Hampshire is the most tree-covered of the lower 48 American states. 89 percent of it is covered in forest.

Malaysia has the world's oldest rainforests. The forests of Sabah are the home of trees towering over one hundred metres high.

20% of the world's forests are found in Russia.

Sweden is actually increasing forest biomass despite being the second largest exporter of paper in the world because they plant three trees for each one they cut down.

The Białowieża Forest in Poland is one of the last remaining remnants of a forest that once stretched across all of Europe. The forest is only intact because a king in the 14th century used it as a refuge from the plague and afterward made it a protected land.

Officials in Siak, Indonesia are using trained elephants outfitted with water pumps and hoses to help control forest fires.

Lightning is the cause of most forest fires.

Forest fires move faster uphill than downhill.

You can remove all the birds and still have a forest, but if you remove all the fungi, the forest will die.

Flower

The ancient Egyptians raised the lily, amaryllis, cornflower, and narcissus.

Flowers were raised for their beauty alone in Babylonia. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, built by Nebuchadnezzar in the 6th century BC, were among the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.

The Elamite city of Susa had fine gardens hundreds of years before the Christian Era. Under the Persians, who made it the capital of their empire, it became the greatest horticultural center of the ancient world. Some of today's species of crocus and iris originated in Susa.

The first Chelsea Flower Show was held in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London on May 20, 1913. It was organized by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) and attracted over 200,000 visitors. The show was a huge success and quickly became one of the most popular gardening events in the world.

The show has been held every year since 1913, except during World War I and World War II. It is now held over five days in May and attracts over 150,000 visitors each year. The show features a wide variety of exhibits, including flower displays, garden furniture, and gardening products. There are also a number of educational talks and demonstrations.

Dibleys gold medal winning Streptocarpus display, Chelsea Flower Show, May 2011. By Nzfauna 

The slogan "say it with flowers"  was devised for the Society of American Florists in 1917. It was invented by it's chairman, Henry Penn of Boston, Massachusetts with Major Patrick O'Keefe, head of an advertising agency.

The peony flower is named after Paean, physician to the Greek gods. The god of medicine, Asclepius, became jealous of his student, and to save Paean from his teacher's wrath, Zeus transformed him in to a peony.

The first flower grown in space, a zinnia, bloomed on January 16, 2016. It was grown in the Veggie plant growth facility on the International Space Station.

Zinnia bloom. 

Rafflesia arnoldii, named after Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore, is the world's largest flower. Found in the Indonesian rain forest, it can grow to be 3 feet across and weigh up to 15 pounds.

The Rafflesia is also known as the corpse flower, so named for the dreadful odor, similar to that of rotting meat, which the plant produces,

Britain's rarest flower is the lady's slipper orchid: a single specimen  grows on a Lancashire golf course under police surveillance.

Each flower broadcasts a variable electrical signal that tells a bee whether the flower has already been emptied by its coworker.

In Mexico yellow flowers symbolizes death, in France they represent infidelity and disloyalty.

When giving someone flowers in Luxembourg it is customary to give an odd number, but not 13.

The word 'Anthology' comes from Greek and means a collection of flowers.

Anthophobia is the fear of flowers.

15% of US women send themselves flowers on Valentine's Day.

Here is a list of songs with flowers in the title

Source Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia © 1998

Coral

Coral are actually animals, not plants, since they do not make their own food. 

Most structures that we call "coral" are, in fact, made up of hundreds to thousands of tiny coral creatures called polyps, which secrete calcium carbonate. All the polyps in a colony are clones, genetically identical. 

Each polyp is a sac-like animal typically only a few millimetres in diameter and a few centimetres in height.

They are the largest structures of biological origin on Earth. 

Most structures that we call "coral" are, in fact, made up of hundreds to thousands of tiny coral creatures called polyps, which secrete calcium carbonate

In 1842 Charles Darwin has formulated the first accurate basic explanation of the origin of coral reefs in his The Structure & Distribution of Coral Reefs.

Coral reefs make up only 1% of the ocean floor, but are home to 25% of all ocean life.

Coral reefs support the most species per unit area of any of the planet’s ecosystems, rivaling rain forests.

Coral Reefs are the largest living structures on Earth — with some visible even from space.

Reefs such as The Great Barrier Reefs are called “barriers” when they run parallel to the coastline, in a way that they protect the shallow waters from the open sea.

In 2020, researchers discovered a coral reef in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef that measures more than 500 meters (1,640 feet). It was the first to be discovered in the Great Barrier Reef in more than 120 years.

Christmas Island in the Pacific Ocean is the largest coral atoll in the world.

The Black Sea Rod Coral contains large quantities of a lipid, prostaglandin A, which deters predatory fish from feeding on it by making them vomit.

14,000 tons of sunscreen are discharged into coral reefs each year, and a drop of it contains enough oxybenzone to disrupt coral growth.

Source Twistedsitter

Conservation

Before the 19th century, when human population sizes were small and modern technology was developing, the effects of human activities on natural populations seldom seemed significant. Worldwide concern about the plight of species in their natural environments only started in the 19th century.

Yellowstone National Park, the world's second official protected area (after Mongolia's Bogd Khan Mountain), was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872.

Detailed pictorial map from 1904

During his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five National Parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act under which he proclaimed 18 national monuments.

Roosevelt also established the first 51 Bird Reserves, 4 Game Preserves, and 150 National Forests. The area of the United States placed under public protection by President Roosevelt totals approximately 230,000,000 acres .

Today, Roosevelt's dedication to conservation is remembered by a national park that bears his name in the North Dakota Badlands. Theodore Roosevelt National Park is home to a variety of plants and animals, including bison, prairie dogs, and elk.

Protection of animal species on an international scale was initiated as early as 1916 with the Migratory Bird Treaty between the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and, later, Mexico.

Missouri was the first US state to amend wildlife conservation into its constitution in order to prevent it from being easily repealed, by a state-wide referendum, which was held on November 3, 1936. The model Missouri uses for wildlife conservation is still a transnational standard in the 21st century.

The 1973 Endangered Species Act was the most effective and far-reaching law ever passed in the United States to protect plants and animals in natural ecosystems. The act made it illegal for anyone to injure, molest, kill, capture, or transport species identified as endangered or threatened. The legislation provided habitat protection programs for endangered plant species and led to the protection of endangered species in other countries through the control of the importing of skins, feathers, shells, and living specimens for commercial purposes.

A publication released at the IUCN World Parks Congress in Sydney on November 13, 2014 showed that the 209,000 conservation reserves around the world now cover 15.4 per cent of the total land area.

At least 844 animals and plants are known to have disappeared in the past 500 years.

Source Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia © 1998 The Learning Company, Inc

Air

Air is a mixture of 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.039% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases.

One cubic centimeter of air contains almost 30,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules.

Wind is moving air.

Air can be polluted by some gases (such as ozone and carbon monoxide), smoke, and ash. This pollution is one of the reasons for global warming, by causing the "greenhouse effect".

Air can be forcefully expelled from a dolphin's blowhole at a speed of 100 mph.

A jar of fresh air sells for $860 in China.

The air in potato chip bags serves a purpose. It is Nitrogen and preserves crispiness and provides cushion during shipping.

Your ears pop in airplanes because your ear has air trapped in it and as the atmospheric pressure changes, it causes pressure on your eardrum.

The smell of the air after a storm is caused by Geosmin, which is a chemical released by dead soil bacteria. Humans are hypersensitive to it, capable of detecting at a concentration of five parts per trillion.

Humans need to breathe about 20,000 one liter bottles of air every day.

About 15% of the air that you breathe in a metro station is human skin.