RI E-IQ = Rhode Island Environmental Information Quotient
What do you know about Rhode Island's natural environment?
I've just spent a little time looking for locally produced lists of Rhode Island rivers and native mammals, and I am not satisfied with the results. I don't want to rely on Wikipedia for this information ~ some Rhode Island organizations probably have reliable, comprehensive resources that would interest both children and adults, with photos and details about habits, diet, etc., of native mammals. Surely the RI Natural History Survey has a good list of native mammals. I'm sure some of the many water-related groups have the list of rivers. This is standard almanac info, and of course it's in printed reference books. But web searches on >>"RHODE ISLAND" RIVERS<< and on >>"RHODE ISLAND" "NATIVE MAMMALS"<< do not produce nice, neat complete lists.
I'd like to be wrong about this! So if you can find comprehensive lists of RI rivers and native mammals online let me know!
It should be easy for anyone to find the answers to the following questions with a quick online search, don't you think? Online answers turn up quickly for the first two questions, but the last two questions, not so much.
- What are the names of the islands in Narragansett Bay? A search on >>"NARRAGANSETT BAY" ISLANDS<< easily turns up a list on providenceri.com (City of Providence website) with historical information about the approximately 30+ islands in the bay. This was written by Stuart O. Hale in the 1980s or earlier. Very interesting and informative, only it lists 22 islands, not the 30+ mentioned at the top of the chapter. Maybe the rest are smaller than Whale Rock? .... How many bay islands can you name? What islands can you see from Colt State Park?
Where are the boundaries between watersheds in Rhode Island? A search on >>"RHODE ISLAND" WATERSHEDS<< turns up a lot of resources, but I almost drowned in the flood of information I found. Excellent maps are easily located, however: The RI Critical Resources Atlas has very informative maps of each watershed. I count 12 watersheds at this site.
- What are the names of Rhode Island's rivers? Search on >>"RHODE ISLAND" "RIVER NAMES"<< and the top 10 results in Google turn up a lot of wikis plus Twin River Gambling Casino. I'll ask the river experts I know and compile this list soon...
- What mammals are native to Rhode Island? A search on >>"RHODE ISLAND" "NATIVE MAMMALS"<< results in lots of detailed info and many references to a 1900 book available online, but no concise, illustrated list of animals. I have a resource we use in the Master Gardener Learning Landscape program that would be a good model for such a web page.
What else should we know about Rhode Island's natural world? Amazing quantities of data are available. Let's also make it easy to grasp the basic facts about our environment.
