National Zoo

Three Jeffers Hill Elementary School students have won third place in a regional science competition for their report on birds.Fifth-graders Meredith Brenner, Lyndsey Dempsey and Margaret Lockhart received the award Monday night in a ceremony at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington.More than 200 teams of fourth- through eighth-grade students from Maryland, Virginia and Washington entered the contest, which was sponsored by the National Association of Science Teachers and WJLA-TV in Washington.

While your attempt at making your home resemble a page from Better Homes and Gardens may have failed, the chance to see perfectly holiday-decorated houses has not passed. On Sunday, seven houses, both historic and modern, in Liberty Township in Adams County, Pa., are opening their doors for the Holiday Home Tour. Decorated homes include the Pecher Farm, a renovated 1800 stone farmhouse; Windborne Farm House and Barns, a working sheep farm; as well as a reproduction New England saltbox, a converted post and beam barn, a Revolutionary-period log house and a passive-solar home built in the 1980s.

I was utterly thrilled by your story about the new animals arriving at the zoo ("Maryland Zoo welcomes new lioness, giraffe," Dec. 3). However, I wish there had been as much in the article about the lioness, such as her age and weight, as there was about the giraffe. For a while, I have been going to the National Zoo in Washington because I felt that the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore was not doing anything new. it was the same-old, same-old that I've seen since I was little. However, with the new animals arriving I will be going to the Maryland Zoo once more.

Bay grasses The lowdown -- Quick quiz: What's SAV? The answer is submerged aquatic vegetation. Learn what it is and why it is important to the bay as the Anita C. Leight Estuary Center hosts "Grasses to the Masses," a program geared toward restoring bay grasses. If you go -- The free program is 2 p.m.-5 p.m. Sunday at the center, 700 Otter Point Road in Abingdon. For more information, call 410-612-1688 or go to otterpointcreek.org. FONZ The lowdown -- Calling all fans of wildlife. Join the Friends of the National Zoo (FONZ)

Bethesda Fine Arts Festival Find original art and fine arts and crafts by 150 artists and craftsmen at this weekend's Bethesda Fine Arts Festival. Taking place in downtown Bethesda's Woodmont Triangle, the festival features paintings, pottery, jewelry, photography, furniture, mixed media and more. Artists from about 20 states, including Maryland artists Karen Clark, Mark Cottman, Amy Lambert, Louis Spear and Jonathan Gledhill, will show and sell their work. The festival will have music from Trio Joyoso, Halley Shoenberg, Keltish, Alexandria Kleztet, Mystic Warriors, David Bach and the James Bazen Project, as well as kids' activities and food from Bethesda-area restaurants.

WASHINGTON -- For the first time in its 147-year history, the Smithsonian Institution is going to ask for donations from visitors at five of its 16 museums.The board of regents of the sprawling museum complex voted unanimously yesterday to take the action, which Smithsonian Secretary Robert McC. Adams described as needed to maintain the institution's programs for many years."The federal resources available to us are clearly plateauing," he said. "We'd better start exploring all legitimate sources of support."

SCRANTON, Pa. -- Scranton is a town that never forgets its elephants.It is a town where waitresses and shopkeepers, teachers and nuns, business executives and salesmen fondly recall years of family picnics at the now-closed zoo at Nay Aug Park to visit a succession of elephants -- Queenie, Tillie (and her pal, Joshua the donkey), Princess Penny, and, most recently, Toni.And it's Toni, on loan to the National Zoological Park in Washington, that has residents here worried now. Toni's caretakers would like to keep her permanently -- and possibly breed her. That request has caused such a stir in this northeast Pennsylvania city that a public hearing has been scheduled for tomorrow night to discuss the matter.

WE LOST a Ling-Ling and gained an Eoraptor.Say what?Days after the natural death of Ling-Ling, the beloved female panda at the National Zoo in Washington, came the announcement that archaeologists had discovered what they believe to be the granddaddy of dinosaurs. They dubbed the dog-sized skeleton "Eoraptor," meaning "dawn stealer"; they surmise it lived at the break of time and depended more on stealth than size to capture food.How panda bears relate to dinosaurs is simply this: We adore them.