The local government programs for Towamensing Elementary sixth-graders began 10 years ago, said Connie Bieling, who, along with Roy Christman, present the program each year.

The first year it was at the school, but then students began to walk to the Towamensing municipal building where recycling could be added to the program.On April 24 Bieling began the program by saying Towamensing is a great place to live. She said while Christman was living in California he printed a paper called the Towamensing Times."We want you to feel native to the area," said Bieling.Christman showed them branches and asked that they be identified. The first with its small, flat needles was a hemlock, the state tree, and the second was a long-needled white pine.The third was a toilet brush, so nicknamed for the artificial branches on the communications tower at the fire company. The requirement that they be added to a tower was removed in the recent changes to zoning.Carbon County was named for its coal resources, and Towamensing is an Indian word for wilderness.The watershed was traced from the Pohopoco to the Lehigh and then the Delaware rivers. South of Route 209 the Aquashicola leads to the Lehigh.Christman said the prehuman residents of the area left fossils. He showed a trilobite fossil which may have been alive at any time in a 300 million year era known as the Devonian period. They are ancient relatives of today's lobsters.The earliest humans were the Lenape Indians. Arrowheads were displayed, and many of the students said they had found arrowheads.The Pennsylvania Dutch settlers brought a stable agricultural lifestyle. A bank barn picture was explained, which had hay and straw in a drive-in storage area on the upper floor. The threshing floor was also on that floor and a flail was used to loosen the grain from the straw by beating it. About 50 of the bank barns remain in the township.A file for use on horse teeth, a pig scraper and a bull puller were shown and explained.Christman asked if any of the students had parents who made a living by farming. One boy said his grandfather did but no one had parents that did.He covered the exurban era we are presently in. As farming gave way to commuters and small villages, the township became an exurban area. To keep it from becoming urban, people try to preserve the remaining farms and forests.Teacher Bill Zeky asked about concrete walls alongside Penn Forest Road. Christman said at one time a person wanted to channel the water, believing he could improve on nature.Bieling took over to explain the township government and introduce two of three supervisors who were present: Penny Kleintop and Tom Newman. The third is Guy Seifert.They pass both resolutions which are statements of intent and ordinances that are laws, and try to resolve disputes.Students were given papers with a chart of the positions such as zoning officer, planning commission, recreation commission, solicitor and engineers and what each did.One that Towamensing is the only township to have is the Historical Commission which created a list of 125 buildings or other structures that are over 100 years old. Students with really old homes were invited to see if they were on that list.The township is divided into residential, light commercial, heavy commercial, rural conservation and conservation-recreation zones.Kleintop designed a logo for the township with trees, agriculture and water sources. It is used on township letterhead.The class moved behind the building where the recycling is collected. Ashes without sharp things in them are collected to be used on roads, Used motor oil is collected for use in winter heating.Number 1 and 2 plastics have bins. The plastic is delivered to a center which shreds, washes and makes it into pellets which are used for lawn chairs, jackets, shoes, purses, baby bath tubs, detergent bottles and paper, said Tom Costenbader, a road crew member.Aluminum and tin cans are melted and made into new cans. It takes 500 years for cans to decompose if aluminum cans are left on the roadside. Cardboard is made into pulp and mixed with water and wood chips to make paper towels and other paper products.Glass bottles can take as much as 4,000 years to decompose. Ink on paper is removed with air bubbles that are forced through the shredded paper. A three-foot high stack of newspaper can save one pulp tree, which are cut when small.Bags of garbage were waiting and students tossed them into a garbage truck and saw them packed tightly. They enjoyed that.