Jones, Charlotte Foltz. Mistakes That Worked: 40 Familiar Inventions and How They Came to Be. New York, NY: Delacorte Press, 1991. Age Range: 8 and up Publisher's Description: Popsicles, potato chips, Silly Putty, Velcro, and many other familiar things have fascinating stories behind them. In fact, dozens of products and everyday items had surprisingly haphazard beginnings. Mistakes That Worked offers forty of these unusual tales, along with hilarious cartoons and weird and amazing facts. Readers will be surprised and inspired!

Claybourne, Anna. The Story of Inventions. Tulsa, OK: EDC Publishing, 2007. Age Range: 7 and up Publisher's Description: Toasters, toilets and televisions, computers, cars and chocolate bars, flying machines and even your jeans. All these everyday things and many more are only here because someone bothered to invent them. This book reveals the real-life stories and bright sparks behind dozens of brilliant inventions.

Bender, Lionel. DK Eyewitness Books: Invention. New York, NY: DK Publishing, 2005. Age Range: 8 and up Publisher's Description: The most trusted nonfiction series on the market, Eyewitness Books provide an in-depth, comprehensive look at their subjects with a unique integration of words and pictures. A fascinating look at the world's earliest simple machines - wheels, gears, pulleys, and levers - to today's complicated telephones and plastics, Eyewitness: Invention presents the stories behind amazing inventions and how they changed the world.

This website focuses on educating readers about the life cycle of paper and plastic bags though facts, charts, and pictures.

This website is devoted to educating children on different environmental issues through homework help, environmental news, games and activities, contests, discussion forums, and opportunities to take environmental action in your community. The website also offers teachers information through an interactive portion of the website called the "teacher's lounge."

This website is published by the Baton Rouge Government and focuses on educating constituents about the process of recycling and which products are recyclable. The website's information toolbar along the left side of the page also directs readers to other important information about natural resources, hazardous materials, and educational classroom activities.

This website works to inform readers about the benefits of recycling and where you can recycle. Additionally, readers learn how they can get involved in the Plastic Film Recycling movement.

Roca, Nuria. The Three R's: Reuse, Reduce, Recycle. Hauppauge, NY: Barron's Educational Series, 2007. Age Range: 3 - 6 years Publisher's Description: The three R's teaches us many things we can do to reduce pollution. When we Reduce the number of different things we throw away--such as plastic bags--we help to keep the land where we live clean and the water that we drink fresh. It is also a good idea to Reuse; for example, by finding new uses for hand-me-downs that we might otherwise be tempted to throw away. And we can Recycle things like paper, cans, and bottles by placing them in collection areas where they can be picked up and made into new and useful things. Remembering these three R words is a good way for us to help make our planet a good place to live.

Miceli-Armenia, Stephanie. When Will We Be Recycled, Momma? Lutz, FL: Author, 2011. Age Range: 4 and up Publisher's Description: A water bottle named Jack dreams of being recycled into a spaceship and blasting off to the moon. However, in order for his dream to come true, he must rely upon the family who buys him and ultimately Juju to be responsible enough to recycle him.

Kooser, Ted. Bag in the Wind. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2010. Age Range: 5 - 8 years Publisher's Description: The life of a plastic bag in a landfill is extraordinarily uneventful and long-15,000 years, give or take a few millennia-but in this former U.S. poet laureate's first picture book, a beige grocery bag serves an array of inventive uses in but a tiny sliver of that life span. Set against a barren plains landscape, Kooser's circular story follows a plastic bag, "the color of the skin of a yellow onion," as it travels in a chain of happenstance from landfill, to tree, to stream, and among the various citizens of a nearby town, including a young girl, a homeless man, and a shopkeeper. The muted, dappled colors of Root's gouache and watercolor illustrations are a perfect complement to Kooser's lengthy, meditative passages, which celebrate not only the virtues of economy and ecology but, moreover, the interconnectedness of all things. An excellent opener for discussions about creative reuse and recycling, the book concludes with an informational author's note.

Jablow, Renee. Hey, That's Not Trash! But Which Bin Does It Go In? New York, NY: Little Simon, 2011. Age Range: 4 and up Publisher's Description: Young readers learn the difference between trash and recyclables in this new, interactive format. Fun, rhyming text shows that everyday paper, plastic and metal trash can serve a bigger purpose when they are recycled! Each page features press-out pieces in the shape of everyday objects. Little ones can practice placing plastics, paper and metal in the correct bins by dropping these play pieces into the three compartments embedded on the front cover. Taking care of the environment has never been so much fun!

Inches, Alison. The Adventures of a Plastic Bottle: A Story About Recycling. New York, NY: Little Simon, 2009. Age Range: 4 and up Publisher's Description: Learn about recycling from a new perspective! Peek into this diary of a plastic bottle as it goes on a journey from the refinery plant, to the manufacturing line, to the store shelf, to a garbage can, and finally to a recycling plant where it emerges into it's new life...as a fleece jacket! Told from the point of view of a free-spirited plastic bottle, kids can share in the daily experiences and inner thoughts of the bottle through his personal journal. The diary entries will be fun and humorous yet point out the ecological significance behind each product and the resources used to make it. Readers will never look at a plastic bottle the same way again!

Harlow, Rosie, and Sally Morgan. Young Discoverers: Garbage and Recycling (Environmental Facts and Experiments). Boston, MA: Kingfisher Books, 2001. Age Range: 5 - 8 years old Publisher's Description: Explaining the difference between biodegradable and non-biodegradable garbage, this book shows how glass, metal, and wool can be easily recycled. How Can I Help? boxes give suggestions for the young environmentalist who wants to recycle at home.

Donald, Rhonda Lucas. Recycling (True Books: Environment). New York, NY: Children's Press, 2001. Age Range: 7 and up Publisher's Description: Ideal for today's young investigative reader, each A True Book includes lively sidebars, a glossary and index, plus a comprehensive "To Find Out More" section listing books, organizations, and Internet sites. A staple of library collections since the 1950s, the new A True Book series is the definitive nonfiction series for elementary school readers.

Bethel, Ellie. Michael Recycle. San Diego, CA: Worthwhile Books, 2008. Age Range: 6 and up Publisher's Description: Just in time for Earth Day on April 22, Michael Recycle tells the adventures of a young superhero whose power allows him to teach people about recycling. After cleaning up a town, the people declare: "To Michael Recycle! The green-caped crusader, our super-green hero, the planet's new savior!"

Stockham, Jessica. Recycling!: Helping Hands Series. Swindon, UK: Childs Play Intl., 2011. Age Range: 5 and up Publisher's Description: What can we recycle? Who can sort the waste? What can we re-use? Helping with real tasks is a natural progression from pretend play, and is a crucial stage in a child's development. Achieving a shared goal encourages a sense of responsibility, and develops many skills useful in later life. Simple conversational text and lively illustrations are carefully designed to encourage further dialogue between reader and child.

Taback, Simms. Joseph Had a Little Overcoat. New York, NY: Viking Juvenile, 1999. Age Range: 5 and up Publisher's Description: When Joseph's favorite overcoat gets old and worn, he makes a jacket out of it. When the jacket is more patches than jacket, Joseph turns it into a vest. When the vest's number is up, Joseph makes a scarf. This thrifty industry continues until there's nothing left of the original garment. But clever Joseph manages to make something out of nothing! (And that's the foreshadowed moral of the story.) In today's throwaway world, Joseph's old-fashioned frugality is a welcome change. Based on a Yiddish song from Simms Taback's youth (lyrics and music reproduced on the last page), the book is filled with rhythms and arresting colors that will delight every reader. As more and more holes appear in Joseph's coat, die-cut holes appear on the pages, hinting at each next manifestation. The illustrations are striking, created with gouache, watercolor, collage, pencil, and ink. Every inch of space is crammed with fanciful, funny details,

Rockliff, Mara. Get Real: What Kind of World are YOU Buying? Philadelphia, PA: Running Press Kids, 2010. Age Range: 10 and up Publisher's Description: Rockliff outlines how mass consumerism is harming our planet, and specifically how teens can use their purchasing power to enact change. She cites examples of products that teens use frequently (high-tech electronics, clothing, junk food, etc.) and explains how their production often harms the people who make them, the environment, and, potentially, the end consumer. She explains that a chocolate bar was most likely made with cacao beans harvested by exploited workers, and that a cell phone contains enough heavy metals to seriously harm our groundwater. She covers (un)fair labor practices, environmental pillaging, factory farming, excessive marketing, local vs. corporate stores, and the pervasive throwaway mentality that drives the whole cycle. The author's in-your-face approach makes her points while still engaging readers-she is never didactic or overbearing. She encourages teens to make a difference in their world by making small changes to things they do already-buying fair-trade chocolate or saving up for an organic cotton T-shirt. The pop-art illustrations are clever and illustrative of many points. The impressive bibliography provides lists of documentaries, websites, books, articles, and other sources to help teens find out how their favorite products came to be (and came to be so cheap). Learning more about how these products are made just might make some teens think twice about their buying habits.

Larson, Jennifer S. Who's Buying? Who's Selling?: Understanding Consumers and Producers. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publications, 2010. Age Range: 6 and up Publisher's Description: This book offers easy-to-read introductions to the world of economics. Addressing readers as "you," Larson asks questions such as, "Did you ever get money for your birthday?" and "How do you decide what to do with your money?" (Do I Need It?). The everyday-life examples will demonstrate to children that they can play a vital role in the economic world. Clear, age-appropriate language explains new concepts well: "When someone works at a paid job, he or she earns money. This money is called income." Simple paragraphs of two to four short sentences appear in large colored fonts against bright backgrounds that change color with every page. Each title includes an activity such as making a spend-or-save list to help decide what to do with birthday money. The books' layout is interesting and fresh, and each page features a large, well-chosen photograph with a boxed caption. A caption in What Is Money, Anyway? states that "People trade goods at swap meets," which may confuse readers who only know swap meets as a place to buy merchandise. Margaret Hall's "Earning, Saving, Spending" series (Heinemann, 2008) covers similar topics of money, banks, allowance, credit cards, and checks, but is for first through third graders. Report writers will value her longer paragraphs with detailed coverage including history and global issues. Larson's books will help ease younger readers into the world of economics.

This Discovery Channel website documents how different items are made through online videos, from frozen pancakes to rubber gloves. All videos are segments from the popular T.V. show by the same name that airs on The Discovery Channel.