I remember when I was in high school and I was taking the calculus exam. The tension was high. This was the mother of all calculus exams, the exam where your score was summed up as one, two, three, four, or five, with five being the highest grade you could get. This was the AP Calculus exam. I was in the permanent section and felt good about what I was doing. I was approaching the problem with ease, even humming a song to myself. I could hear the people in the stands cheering me on. I was almost done when I realized to my horror that I had made a terrible mistake. I started to panic. Time was running out. The exam proctor had reported that there were only 10 minutes left and I was starting to sweat. My heart was pounding, my vision was blurry. Then, I remember I had a pencil with an eraser. I turned the pencil so that the eraser was pointing directly at the paper and the lead was pointing at the ceiling and I erased my mistake as no man had ever erased a mistake on an exam before. Quickly my mistake vanished and I was able to write the correct answer. A couple of months later I got my score. I had passed the exam. The pencil had once again saved the day and I began to appreciate and love it. Am I different from any other human being on this planet? I doubt it. Just as the pencil was useful to me during that exam, the pencil has been an essential part of people's lives since its inception. Although there are colored pencils and mechanical pencils, one pencil still seems to break out every time you need to write something: the wooden pencil. However, most people don't realize that the wooden pencil has a history, is made in a factory, and has effects on the environment. After reading this essay you will develop a d...... half of the article ......s.usa.gov/epublications/gettysburg/g2.htm>.9. Manetti, Michelle. “The gardening idea suggests using pencil shavings to help plants grow.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, June 12, 2013. Web. April 23, 2014. .10. Martin, Douglas. "List of manufacturers." List of manufacturers. Np, 2012. Web. 23 April 2014. .B. Books11. Price, Jennifer. Flight Maps: Encounters with Nature in Modern American Culture. New York: Basic, 1998. Print.12. Warren, Louis S. American Environmental History. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2003. Print.C. Course materials13. “Colonial Environments,” HIST 334, NJIT, lecture, 1/30/1414. “The CONSERVATION MOVEMENT,” HIST 334, NJIT, lecture, 3/6/1415. “Cars and the REFORMING of NATURE, HIST 334, NJIT, conference, 3/27/14