"The Great Turtle Race in Kansas" is based on a true story of a 6th grade class in Caldwell, Kansas, who succeeded in their petition to make the Ornate Box turtle the Kansas state reptile. In this fun and instructional children's tale, Hank Thatcher brings to life the workings of state government.

A pocket guide

In Bleeding Borders, Kristen Tegtmeier Oertel offers a fresh, multifaceted interpretation of the quintessential sectional conflict in pre--Civil War Kansas. Instead of focusing on the white, male politicians and settlers who vied for control of the Kansas territorial legislature, Oertel explores the crucial roles Native Americans, African Americans, and white women played in the literal and rhetorical battle between proslavery and antislavery settlers in the region. She brings attention to the local debates and the diverse peoples who participated in them during that contentious period. Oertel begins by detailing the settlement of eastern Kansas by emigrant Indian tribes and explores their interaction with the growing number of white settlers in the region. She analyzes the attempts by southerners to plant slavery in Kansas and the ultimately successful resistance of slaves and abolitionists. Oertel then considers how crude frontier living conditions, Indian conflict, political upheaval, and sectional violence reshaped traditional Victorian gender roles in Kansas and explores women's participation in the political and physical conflicts between proslavery and antislavery settlers. Oertel goes on to examine northern and southern definitions of "true manhood" and how competing ideas of masculinity infused political and sectional tensions. She concludes with an analysis of miscegenation -- not only how racial mixing between Indians, slaves, and whites influenced events in territorial Kansas, but more importantly, how the fear of miscegenation fueled both proslavery and antislavery arguments about the need for civil war. As Oertel demonstrates, the players in Bleeding Kansas used weapons other than their Sharpes rifles and Bowie knives to wage war over the extension of slavery: they attacked each other's cultural values and struggled to assert their own political wills. They jealously guarded ideals of manhood, womanhood, and whiteness even as the presence of Indians and blacks and the debate over slavery raised serious questions about the efficacy of these principles. Oertel argues that, ultimately, many Native Americans, blacks, and women shaped the political and cultural terrain in ways that ensured the destruction of slavery, but they, along with their white male counterparts, failed to defeat the resilient power of white supremacy. Moving beyond a conventional political history of Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Borders breaks new ground by revealing how the struggles of this highly diverse region contributed to the national move toward disunion and how the ideologies that governed race and gender relations were challenged as North, South, and West converged on the border between slavery and freedom.

The revised edition of this well-loved guide is the essential reference for the identification of amphibians and reptiles in the Great Lakes region. Fully updated treatments of over 70 species feature detailed information on the distribution, habitat, behavior, and life history of these fascinating animals. This edition includes all new distribution maps as well as 90 additional color photographs showing close-ups of distinguishing features, common color phases, and different metamorphic stages. A thorough introduction provides a wealth of information on the evolution, natural history, classification, and conservation of these animals and examines changing Great Lakes ecosystems and their impact on herpetological diversity. Amphibians and Reptiles of the Great Lakes Region is a must-have resource for teachers, students, naturalists, professional biologists, and anyone else with an interest in this region’s ecology.

Treat your students to an exciting hot air balloon ride across the USA. There's lots to see and do as each state is visited (the District of Columbia, too), its history and geography explored, and fascinating facts explained. There are map activities, places and physical features to identify, and topics for further investigation. There are parks, lakes, mountains and swamps to discover as well as the thousands of plants and animals that share our land and water. This product has been selected by a national panel of classroom teachers as a winner of Learning Magazine's Teachers' Choice Award.