Appleseeds articles from April 2005

Appleseeds archives from April 2005

Amazing facts about an awesome river: "it was a monstrous big river ...".(Where in the World?)(Mississippi River)
April 1, 2005... That's what Huck Finn said about the Mississippi River. The Mississippi River is between 2,300 and 2,500 miles long, depending on whom you ask. (Measuring rivers isn't as easy as you'd think!) Together with the Missouri River, it forms the...

Flood alert!(Mississippi River)
April 1, 2005... In the spring and summer of 1993, rainstorms pounded the midwestern United States. As the rain fell, the Mississippi River rose higher and higher. Like a wet sponge, the ground became so full of water that it finally could not absorb any more...

Flood busters: controlling the mighty Mississippi.(Mississippi River)
April 1, 2005... For thousands of years, the Mississippi River followed its own course. During heavy rains, it flooded the surrounding plains and valleys. After dry spells, it shriveled up so much that you could walk across it. Its shape was always...

The Mounds of Cahokia.
April 1, 2005... The year was 1150. The chief stepped out of his huge thatched house into the chilly dawn air. His 50-foot-tall house was built atop a terraced, flat-topped mound, 100 feet high. The mound covered 14 acres. The chief looked down upon his city of...

Boats of the Mississippi.(Mississippi River)
April 1, 2005... Two wooden oars plunge into the Mississippi River. They move in time, guiding a canoe downstream. Imagine that it is the early 1700s. In this canoe sits an American Indian, guiding a European explorer into the wild lands. Or perhaps a French...

Mississippi music.
April 1, 2005... Have you ever had the blues? Or have you ever needed to jazz things up from time to time? Did you know that those sayings come from music? The music we call the blues was born from the suffering of slaves. Jazz can be flashy and full of...

Meet Mark Twain.(Biography)
April 1, 2005... "... a pilot, in those days, was the only... entirely independent human being theft lived in the earth."--MARK TWAIN Growing up in the 1840s, a young boy named Samuel Langhorne Clemens spent countless hours watching mighty steamboats...

Huck and Jim on the river: in Mark Twain's famous novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, young Huck Finn and his friend Jim, a runaway slave, travel down the Mississippi River on a homemade raft. Read what Huck has to say about the pleasures of life on the river.(Reading Corner)(Excerpt)
April 1, 2005... Sometimes we'd have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water; and maybe a spark--which was a candle in a cabin window--and sometimes on the water you could see a spark or...

Explorers from Europe.(Mississippi River)
April 1, 2005... The first Europeans to see the Mississippi River were looking for a water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Spanish explorers sailed into the Gulf of Mexico hunting for a passage through the Americas. Along the way, they...

Measuring the Mississippi.(By the Numbers)
April 1, 2005... The Mississippi River is ever-changing. The length, width, depth, shape, and water flow are different at any given time or place along the river. Weather has a huge effect on the river. When it rains or snows either a great deal or very...

The scrambled boats of the Spismispisi.(Puzzle Power)
April 1, 2005... Unscramble the letters to reveal a Mississippi riverboat or boat part. There are the same total number of letters and total number of words in the scrambles as in their corresponding answer. But BEWARE: Each of the words in the answers won't...