Well, I managed 28 out of the 30 and all the bonus questoins though I have to admit I have a degree in Geology and Geography so have a kind of vested interest in my own locale (Köszeg, Hungary). Also, having 2 younger brothers serving in the military and their jibes about me surviving less than 3 hours if I was locked out of my own house encouraged me to look into various do-it-alone publications.. I hesitate to say survivalist magazines etc ;)Also as this is not my native country I was stumped by questions 6 and 29, my (hungarian) wife has since updated me, the last natural wildfire was 59 years ago and we don't know what the Flower is called in English, dictionaries didn't help either :(

ps, lovin' the stuff on your site, keep up the good work, cheers!

29 of the general questions(couldnt answer 19 as the growing season is quite variable) & 2 of the bonus questions -unsure about what plants were here 10,000 years ago -this area was then heavily glaciated- and plain couldnt answer 34...BUT
I've lived in this place for over 32 years (and have specialist knowledge of locally edible plants & previous tribes - I have both Maori & Pakeha ancestry) so there would be something terribly wrong if I didnt know my home area very well indeed-

this is a good questionnaire and I've taken a copy for other family members (who live elsewhere) to have a go. Thanks Kevin-

Kevin
25 plus 3 bonus. I got hooked on an Earth Science class my freshman year in high school and I've been at varying levels of awareness ever since. The Whole Earth Catalog helped a lot - I lived three blocks from WEC headquarters in Menlo Park CA in 1967-70 and my collection of Coevolution Quarterlies goes back to #2! I also was a hiker/backpacker until my knee got shaky, then switched to biking. Finally, I'm a map freak - I just found out about GreenMaps (www.greenmap.org), possibly another cool tool, and I'm looking at doing one for Berkshire County.

Hi Kevin-
GREAT collection of questions/ issues.

I scored pretty high because these are my interests -- hobby (naturalist / botany), training (geologist) and profession (wetlands and environmental consultant), married to the person in charge of environmental health issues for a county that is larger than either RI or DE.

On the other hand, it strongly underlined for me that some of my "knowledge" is perhaps folk-lore or intuitive -- I need to check my facts to be sure these things that I think "I know" are correct. Thanks for the thoughtful presentation.

I scored a 24. I had answers for other questions, but I wasn't absolutely sure they were correct so I didn't give myself credit (must have someting to do with being an engineer). I had at least partial answers for all the questions.

I grew up in a rural area, so I've spent a lot of time outdoors. The area I live in now puts an emphasis on outdoor activities. There are many places to hike, mountainbike, etc. I'm an engineer and have varied interest in other disciplines, so I guess I'm more observant than the average person. I guess my interest and ability to observe help me gather more knowledge about the area I live in.

Oops, I didn't keep exact score, Kevin - I was having too much fun blasting through the questions before my Google habit kicked in. I think I was right around 25-26, pre bonus (and then maybe 2.5 on the bonus round). Great stuff, this.

How? Whole Earth Catalog gets some credit of course, early scouting experience, adult education and work as systems ecologist/industrial ecologist (natlogic.com). Let's give Bucky a hand too!

Very interesting Kevin and thanks. It gave me food for thought. Interestingly I did very well on your test when Here was Casa Gaia, the house we built in Cadiz in Spain, where I lived for 15 years in the middle of nowhere, and spectacularly badly when Here was the middle of Bristol, England, where I have been living for just over a year.
Obviously when you build a house that is self-sufficient in energy and (most) waste solutions, some of the questions become easy. Also living an outdoors life in a warm country near the sea, caring for the land, within sight of the hills that form your watershed and feed your well, some of the answers are things you just KNOW.
But I can always find excuses ;o) I know almost nothing about Bristol, and some of the almost nothing I know is down to laziness and an unconscious decision to stop observing even some of the easily observable phenomenon, such as sunset. I'm indoors too much and I obviously don't even look out of the window! I haven't forgotten the moon yet though, thankfully.
Thanks again for the test. I'm going to start seeing again. And thanks to those who added their comments. I especially like the idea of thinking about the people who care for the infrastructures we depend on.

Hi Kevin,

After living on the same ridge in semi wilderness, in central california for 26 years, I try to be mindful of these things daily. I got a 27, and then 3 bonus questions for 30.

I'm embarrassed that I don't know more local edible plants beyond the feral berries and rogue apples, and horrified that I don't know where the recycled plastic goes! I should know what grew here 10,000 years ago, I guess it would be the same mixed coastal grass, oak/madrone and redwoods, that grow here today, but dunno for sure.

For the last 3-4 years, I've been thinking about tricorders, the wireless computer scanners used by star trekkers to learn about an alien planet. A tricorder for planet earth would tell us everything about 'here.' Everything about the environment, ( water, habitats, soil, etc.) infrastructures, health and safety, public resources, history, myths, culture, commerce, commentary, decorations, and entertainment - in this place, here. ... It's an interesting challenge for wireless positioning, and processing geospatial data.

Meanwhile I've greatly enjoyed slowly learning about this place on the ridge by simply living here.

Kevin,
I finished with about 31 total, with bonus answers. I grew up with an encyclopedia and acres of woodland to explore. Now, in an urban setting, raising my own kids, I am amazed at how little those living around me care about these questions. When the water authority tells you to limit your water consumption, do you really understand why? shouldn't you? And as for those who say "who cares?" to this whole exercise, I ask you why are you reading this site, of all sites, if you find ignorance desirable? These quesitons aren't only about physical understanding, but some show you a glimpse of the deeper character of your "Here," the soul of you land, the source of your community. A sense of "here" creates a sense of self that is deeper.

Hey, Kevin

Scoring a 30 was pretty easy, having lived in the same place in Mill Valley for 13 years, in sight of the watershed, the sewage treatment plant, the tidal estuary and the full moon. I've gotten to know the turf very well. It's a good exercise that most people should at least investigate. We'd all be better steward of our localities if we knew and understood this stuff.

Cheers

It's hard to answer questions like these about a megalopolis like New York, where I live. So many of the questions refer to things that simply do not exist (or barely exist) within 20 miles of me, or if they do exist they are useless. There is no use whatsoever, save curiosity or paranoia, for a New Yorker to know the answers to most of these questions.

Also, the list has a bias in favor of rural living (and indeed post-apocalyptic survivalism) and against collaborative/collectivist urban living. It clearly is intended to imply that there is something inherently wrong with 8 million people living in everyday ignorance of where their water, food, waste etc comes from and goes to. There's nothing inherently right about ignorance of anything, of course, but I resent the implication that the urban dweller's ability to rely on our infrastructure to make our lives and lifestyles possible, without understanding the details, is somehow being environmentally irresponsible.

Perhaps the opposite is true: that collective urban living permits the "cells" (to use your metaphor) to specialize and form a more efficient whole than people who live more autonomously. Someone who can answer all 30 questions correctly strikes me as less of a single cell in a larger organism than a single-celled organism like an ameba or a paramecium, able to live autonomously and have no reliance on the services and knowledge of the cells next door to them. Such an existence isn't necessarily superior to living as part of a collective. For example, the 8 million people in New York City probably leave a smaller overall environmental footprint (pollution, waste, water usage, species displacement) than 8 million rural or suburban dwellers who might know their answers to many of these questions.

I was able to score 27/31 without any assistance. I have lived in the same general area my entire life, however, and my father was a naturalist who engrained much understanding of the local area and history into me.

I scored over 30 with no reference material - wasn't keeping track specifically. Given the other responses, I thought it might interest you to know exactly why I scored well. I do pay attention to both my immediate surroundings and the environmental/ecological economy... but the major factor is that I live in an extremely rural area: 54.85 x -163.42. We *need* to know most of this stuff in order to live well. Some days (and some occupations) we need to know it in order to survive.

These things are easy to forget when you're surrounded by Constructions, especially when the Constructions seem to be dominant. I always felt starved when I lived in cities. As humans we need a visceral reminder of our existence in reality when we have attempted to insulate ourselves so completely from its effects.

We cannot contain the complexity of the world or the universe within our minds. How sad it is that we try to impose our simple understanding upon the world in return. Who can imagine the beauty we have already destroyed, even within ourselves? Whole cultures are missing - and where I live, this is a sore subject because it was an 8,000 year continuous civilization, one of the oldest anywhere. *That* is sustainable living. We have a lot to learn.

To Vanessa: I too am nomadic. (In my mind, I am long term here... working on two years!) I find that the more I travel, the easier it is to notice the differences - even the subtle differences - between the places I live. Why travel, why live the light nomadic life with all the discipline and respect it requires, if not to enjoy these details?

Well - perhaps you are a people person. I am a place person; new people are the icing on the cake, but the place is the important part for me.

This lifestyle is one of the easiest, most effective, and most fun ways to share information and techniques and viewpoints. While the 'net is invaluable, presence is more powerful. Keep moving!

Very nice test, but impossible for me as I am nomadic...so its hard to know all these answers for the specific region I am in right now. Wanted to comment, that as I am practialy on the equator (Colombia), we dont have spring, so question 6 for example doenst apply, the sun sets all year at almost the same time (20 minute diference)- I am going to have a shaman do the test and see how he scores...will let you know, Best Vanessa.
PD - I dont understand question 13, I consider my body to be my first watershed.

In having watershed awareness, one logically assumes the reference is to modernity, ie, OUR watershed. What does the ground cover 10,000 years ago have to do with our current watershed awareness?

I was a few days off on the full moon, but otherwise, got them all--but it's part of my WSU Extension job. We've been working on a "Sense of Place" program here in Northeast Washington State (Pend Oreille County)for six years. This is in partnership with the Kalispel Tribe of Indians as a stewardship education program to help acclimatize our rapidly growing rural population (mostly urban migrants). Our newsletter is online at www.diggings.org--and there is even one issue that discusses how the little burg of Usk, WA shares the same latitude as Paris, France.
Peter Warshall's original list and the bioregional discussions in CoEvolution Quarterly were a lot of the inspiration for this program. I love this stuff! EPA has some extensive materials, too, on Sense of Place. I've lived in this spot for over 30 years and I'm still a beginner at learning it.

I found this hard to score. I live on a Sausalito houseboat, which makes a number of the questions trivially easy, but I knew part of the answer for almost all of them.

Which is of course beside the point. The quiz is a great idea. I'd like to see questions about food sources, the surrounding populace ... but I guess that would move it away from focus on watersheds.

27 and 28, without and with a bonus point, respectively.
I live in what was a leaky, unsound house in a
rural area on the margin of an urban area, with a
well, septic tank and leach field.
My awareness was forced upon me by the power of
nature :) Oh, and I'm a tree-hugging earth muffin,
too.

I notice that the quiz is a little short on the
small mammals, reptiles, amphibians and arthropods
that live in their own Big Heres. Kind of short
on exploring knowledge of government jurisdictions,
like "who patrols your roads, administers your
building permits, fights your fires, collects your
taxes, responds to medical emergencies? Who is
your closest government representative." That's
part of the Big Here, too, even though it is
invisible.

I have to bone up on my electrical distribution
network, though. That was a good question.

I scored a 28, bumped to 31 by bonuses. I know where the closest wilderness is (the pine barrens in NJ) but don't know much about its burn history, since I've only lived in Princeton a short time). I also missed the moon phase, probably because I just don't pay attention to it (but it wouldn't hurt).

I was mostly an outcast in high school, which I staved off by learning North American plants and outdoor skills with the intention of living as a hermit or something. Well, I never got into the hermit thing, and I guess I socially blossomed or something. But the wilderness survival bug bit me hard, and I kept learning stuff.

Some great books (or summer classes, if you can afford them) are written by Tom Brown and his Tracker School.

http://www.trackerschool.com/

The program, and books, advocate a holistic approach to awareness of your environment, with the eventual goal of being totally self sufficient with few tools in complete wilderness.

Finally, another good question would be something like:

Name 5 kinds of wild mammals could you expect to find in your area, and one good location each to see one near you.

Mammals are tougher than birds, because they are less visible when moving around, and are generally more wary of people.

In any case, great post.

I got 29. No special schooling (my grad work is in math) or anything, but maybe watching the weather channel too much, havign spent too much time on NOAA's website, and being interested in where I live (this is the third place, and third totally different part of the country I have lived in). A lot of this seems like common knowledge except for some of the things regarding species, birds etc.

Very cool quiz!!!

I got 34 out of 34 correct.

Of course, my answer to every question was "Who the f*** cares?"

How close do the answers have to be? I know, for example, that the land around my house is at about 445 feet, and I'm in the first floor of the house, which is bermed to four feet, so am I at 441 feet?

I got a 27, 25 without the bonus questions. I'm a master gardener trainee here, and the Intermountain West is pretty solid for education about how much it rains, where the nearest faults are, and what was here a long while ago. I would be the average score for this area would be a fairly decent 15.

Great quiz.

I got 29 + 4 = 33 correct. The only one that stumped me was the one about species appearing within 500 years ago because...well...I'm in London. If I was answering from my native Mississippi I would have of course thought of kudzu.

There's no formal reason why I'm aware of this stuff -- I just pay attention, I guess. (I also do a bit of astronomy which helps with the sunrise/moonset sort of things.)

I score in the low twenties on the first 30, and got all the bonus question (I'm not sure how to score question 6, for example, because there are native bloomning plants in all seasons here in Orange County, CA).

My formal training as a Chemical Engineers helped little. Rather, I am a curious person who reads (and retains) all sorts of miscellany, such as how the local waste treatment facility works (hence I knew the answer to 4).

I think the key to scoring well on this test is (1) a strong knowledge of physical (as opposed to political) maps, and (2) going on guided nature walks with your kids, where the docents always prattle on about what native americans supposedly did in an attempt to keep the kids' interest.

You only got 5. You need to get out more. I was able to answer 28 of the 34 questions. Libertarians of all people need to know this stuff. How can you consider yourself a knowledgable citizen if you do not know the source of what you consume, where your wastes go and how they are remediated/used? Knowing these things is part and parcel of being a good citizen, being able to evaluate proposals by your local, state and national governments. How do you know if what they are proposing is true, and how it will affect you. As far as the directions thing is concerned, how do you arrange your living to take advantage of or mitigate the effects of weather?

I scored 24 and 2 bonus points. But I think I should get the tides question by default since I don't live near the coast so tides are irrelevant
to the edge of the Piedmont Plateau.

By schooling and inclination, I'm a geographer with
an interest in physical geography.

I may have scored an 8... I live in a 250ft high building surrounded by other 200-700ft buildings, needless to say, there isn't much here that's natural. Having not been born in this location (downtown Toronto), I am incredibly out of touch with my environment. It's kind of sad.

Kevin, Good questions. I found it relatively easy to get 28 or so, and 3 more with some thought. I live in Canberra, the capital city of Australia. Despite being the capital, it's really a small town. Most of the questions are easy to answer because:
(1) Clear skies and no tall buildings makes it very easy to observe the sun, sunset etc. Clear nights makes the moon (and stars and planets) very visible.
(2) We have been in drought for the past few years, so issues of water, where it comes from and where it goes, rainfall etc are very much in everyone's mind
(3) Canberra is literally a few minutes away from wilderness, and bushwalking etc is a common activity
(4) Canberra is in the middle of a rural area(farms).
(5) Canberra is an oasis for bird life
(6) There are many aboriginal (original inhabitants) sites around the countryside. Aboriginal elders often open events (called 'welcome to country')
(7) Any Canberran that has a garden knows exactly what the soil is made of (hard clay!)

Thanks. I scored in the lower 20's but it's because I live in a system with a great deal of interdepedency - a major city - with wilderness at a great remove. It's harder to know when the insulation between you and the natural context is so thick.

Growing up I lived right on the edge of wilderness, and 10 years later I still know the tides, the lunar patterns, exactly and specifically where my waste went to and exactly and specifically where every drop of water I drank came from (my roof). Thanks for the exercise.

24.5 or so, plus 3 bonus questions. I'd like to think that many of these questions should be easy to answer by Portland, OR folks like me because many of the location specific natural history issues are common place in the vernacular of the Pacific Northwest. Many of our social issues are also dominated by geology. Heck, you can look out the window and see two of the major landscape shapers (volcanoes and the Columbia River) However, I am a biologist and may simply be over estimating my fellow citizens.

You need a tree question, e.g.

"What species of tree is closest to right here"

I got a 28, with bonus questions a 31. It is not fair though because as a techer of Permaculture we do similar things in all of our classes and in Regenesis we help people to understand thier places so that they can live with them in reciprically benificial ways. I have sen and used earlier versions of this quiz and am really glad and grateful that you all have been working on this so long. We all should be able to get them all thought the number ones all bother me. How many and when by the clock don't seem to be quite the point but that's just me.
For questions, how 'bout: WHat role does your place play in the functioning of your water shed? Biologically? Hydrologically? Socially?
Is the place you live healthy? If not what would it take to bring it back to health?
WHat were the land management tools used by native people that helped to co-evolve the plant and animal communitites encountered by europeans.
Describe the role of fire in your landscape.

many thanks
Joel

I answered 24 correct. However, being trained as a civil engineer in Florida, I have had courses in hydrology, geotechnical engineering, land development and solid waste/hazardous waste management.

kevin--I scored a respectable 24, but my husband David Trapp scored a stellar 28. We live in Teton Valley, Idaho, where environmental issues are a frequent topic of news and conversation.

Kevin,

I share the desire to attain "a sense of place" for myself and for others as well. I've been working as I have time on WatershedWeb.net (soon to become A Sense of Place Network) in order to make online tools so that more people might come to know these things.

It is a work in progress, but I'm refocusing on it at present and I'm in the process of moving the site to ning.com where I can leverage their built in tools for the application in order to focus more on promoting and managing the project; rather than building all the custom funtionality from scratch in the drupal package that I hacked it from. I build web community portals for a living, so my energy for codng in my "spare" time is somewhat limited.

Just wanted to share this when I read your "want ad". Cheers and thanks for caring about your place, my place, and ours!

PEACE

Kevin, Great questions, all. Out of 35, I didn't know 8; specifically questions 2 (I know the approximate time but not the exact time), 10 (could only name 3), 14, 16, 21,25, 30 and 34. 23 is not applicable to me. (I live smack dab in the middle of the Great Plains).

What I do know is courtesy of my job - I work coordinating water pollution awareness programs. If I'm honest with myself, I should have scored higher than I did.