It’s a Wide Open Tuesday Trivia!

“Few things have defined the American experience as fully as the open prairie.” – Bill McKibben

New this month from the University of Nebraska Press is The Wide Open: Prose, Poetry, and Photographs of the Prairie, edited by Annick Smith and Susan O’Connor. This acclaimed and beautiful portrait of the often “high, cold plains of the American West” features the talents of writers such as Mary Clearman Blew, Judy Blunt, and Jim Harrison as well as the photographic interpretations of Lee Friedlander and Lois Conner. Their combined efforts bring together a unique and multifaceted biography of this pervasive landscape.

This week’s Tuesday Trivia will lend its hand with a (hopefully) quick and enlightening quiz on the everyday ins and outs of the prairie, which all Americans should be educated about. Care to go for a nature walk blogger….?

1.    Prairies once covered about how much of the United States?
2.    Today how much of that prairie still exists?
3.    True or False: Prairies are one of the most recently developed ecosystems in North America?
4.    Iowa has the largest percentage of its area covered by tall grass prairie. How much is this?
5.    True or false: Over fifty plant species can occur in a prairie of less than five acres?
6.    These tall grasses can grow how high?
7.    Some prairie plants put roots out that extend how far below?
8.    How many bison lived on the prairies of North American when Europeans arrived?
9.    By 1885 fewer than how many existed?
10.    Prairie fires were important to the development of the tall grass prairie as they kept the prairie from what?

Ok, bloggers how did you do? Be sure to check back tomorrow for the answers! In the meantime head to the UNP website to check out The Wide Open, and our other great September books!