Have you ever planned something, only to have things turn out completely different in real life? Sometimes, you spend hours, days, or even weeks planning something– maybe a birthday party, a Halloween costume, or a trip– only to have things change at the last minute. Sometimes, this change is disappointing and frustrating. Other times, you realize there’s an even better way of doing things. Either way, we all have to make changes to our plans sometimes, and no one knew this better than the subject of today’s podcast: Rachel Carson.  Rachel made many plans in her life, and many of them changed unexpectedly, for better and for worse. But she learned how to make the best of these changes, staying true to herself and, in the end, making the world a better place too.

Rachel’s parents had moved to their land near the Allegheny River, in Springdale Pennsylvania with the intention of selling it off piece by piece. This was one of the first plans Rachel witnessed unraveling. Her father, Robert, wasn’t able to sell many plots, and the family struggled to make ends meet on his salary as an insurance salesman. But, it did leave the land open for other uses–some of which would have a bigger, more important impact than money ever could have. 

The Allegheny River valley was a perfect place for a child to go exploring: rolling hills and lush forests turn from vibrant green in the summer to yellow, orange, and red in the fall, cut through with the wide, winding Allegheny River. And Rachel, Robert’s youngest child by far, was just the child to discover its natural wonders. Being the youngest in her family came with its advantages though. While her older brother, Robert, and sister, Marian, were at school, Rachel’s mother, Maria, took her on walks around the property. 

Maria was curious and intelligent. As a young woman, she had been a schoolteacher and taught piano lessons. Like many women in the late 1800s, she gave up her job when she got married, but she kept her sense of wonder about nature. She and Rachel would ramble around their land for hours. Maria would teach Rachel about the different kinds of birds. Naturally enough, Rachel caught her mother’s love of nature. She felt connected to every bird, animal, and bug, and would give each one she spotted its own special name.

Rachel also loved books, especially stories about the sea. Even though she’d never seen it, she was drawn to the descriptions of its power, wildness, and majesty. She decided she wanted to be a writer when she grew up, and she didn’t wait to get started! She began to write, sending her stories to magazines when she was ten years old. Two of her stories won prizes, and were printed in a magazine! 

But as Rachel grew up, she started to notice changes in her town and the surrounding area. And to Rachel’s way of looking at things, these were not good changes. A glue factory opened nearby, and the air was filled with the terrible fumes it let off. Two power stations were built in town. The water in the Allegheny river became polluted. Rachel mourned the loss of the pristine natural beauty she had explored from childhood.

But Rachel didn’t want to stay in Springdale forever. She wanted to go to college. Her parents supported her, but they didn’t have the money to pay for it. Fortunately, she was a good student and the Pennsylvania College for Women, in Pittsburg, offered her a scholarship. Rachel launched herself into her studies head first, grateful that this was one plan she could keep. She wrote for the school’s student newspaper and magazine – stories inspired by World War I battles and the oceans she had still never seen. Even though she’d still never seen it, her story gave such detailed descriptions of the ocean that readers felt like they were there, the rushing sound of the waves and salty air all around them!

It seemed that Rachel was well on her way to becoming a writer, just like she’d planned. But, once more, things didn’t go according to plan. In order to graduate from college, Rachel had to take one science class. Rachel chose to take biology – the study of living things. For someone who loved nature and animals, this made sense, but Rachel had no idea that the decision would change her life forever.

Rachel’s teacher, Mary Scott Skinker, was inspiring and energetic–excited to share her passion for science. Rachel soon learned that there was so much more to nature than she had even realized: that animals and plants and their environment were all connected and worked together in a delicate, complex system. Because of that one class–with that one teacher–she decided to get her degree in Biology instead of English. 

After she graduated, Rachel finally had the chance to see the ocean…Not just see it, but work with it! Her teacher, Mary Scott Skinker, helped her get a summer job at the Marine Biological Institute at Woods Hole in Maryland, part of Johns Hopkins University. Rachel spent the summer studying ocean creatures. Most days she was on a boat or at the beach, collecting specimens to study. Rachel loved this time. Her coworkers were a group of smart and welcoming scientists, and she called it “a delightful place to biologize.”

Rachel continued on to study at Johns Hopkins and got a Master’s degree. But soon after, she had to change her plans yet again–and not because she wanted to this time. She had hoped to continue studying and get a Ph.D., but her family was having trouble with money. Her family–brother and sister included–had come to live with her in Maryland while she was in school, and they were very close-knit. Rachel decided she had to find a job so she could help them out.

She eventually found a job at the US Fisheries Bureau, writing radio shows about different types of fish. A radio show about fish might sound a little dry, but Rachel was just the right person to make a splash with it (get it?). She had studied fish for her Master’s degree and had the writing skills to make her subject vibrant and entertaining. She also started writing articles about nature and the environment for newspapers. She exposed problems with overfishing in the Chesapeake Bay and chronicled efforts to conserve nature. 

Even though it wasn’t what she had planned, Rachel suddenly found herself in a position to combine her talents as a writer and a scientist. Eventually, she wrote a book about the ocean that became very popular, allowing her to quit her job and move to a cottage on the coast of Maine. But even though Rachel didn’t like fame and attention, she wasn’t going to fade into a quiet, unbothered retirement. She cared too much about the world and its creatures to ignore the problems humans created for it. 

Starting during World War II, Rachel became concerned about a new pesticide that the government was using. I won’t make you listen to me trying to pronounce the full name, but it’s usually called DDT. DDT was first used to kill mosquitos, which spread diseases like malaria, during the war. But after the war, the government started spraying it all over the eastern United States to kill moths, and people began to notice things in the sprayed areas. Bad things.

Fish and birds were dying at an alarming rate, and bigger animals, like dogs, cats, and even humans, were getting sick. Rachel wanted to write about the problems caused by spraying, but almost no magazine wanted to print such a story. In fact, most were printing stories about how great DDT was! The companies that made the insecticide had a lot of money and power, and they made sure their perspective was heard. 

Rachel didn’t give up though. She decided to write a book instead. She scoured government reports and academic papers related to pesticides. She found out that the substance didn’t just kill birds, it also made their eggshells weaker, so fewer baby birds were born. She found out it was linked to cancer in humans. These were hard years for Rachel. Her favorite niece, then her mother passed away, and then she had her own cancer diagnosis a few years later. She kept researching and writing through it all though. She had to make sure people knew the truth.

Finally, in 1962, the book, Silent Spring, was ready. Instead of publishing it all at once, the magazine the New Yorker printed it as a series of four articles. Rachel’s research was solid and her writing was persuasive and eloquent. The companies that made the pesticides were furious and tried to convince people that Rachel was wrong. But many scientists read the book and wrote reviews saying she had gotten it right. Rachel went on television to be interviewed about her work. The government began paying attention and even released a report that backed up much of what Rachel had written. President Kennedy’s administration said they would change the government’s policy on spraying pesticides. By 1980, DDT had been banned in the United States.

Sadly though, Rachel didn’t live to see the full impact of her work. She died of a heart attack in 1964, before much had really changed. In the 10 years after Silent Spring came out, the government passed laws that would protect people from dangerous pesticides like DDT. One law said that companies had to prove chemicals in pesticides were safe to use around people. The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, was set up and began testing for traces of dangerous chemicals in the environment – air, water, and land. 

But more than changing how people thought about pesticides, Rachel Carson and Silent Spring changed how people thought about everything in the environment. Through her writing, Rachel helped people see that everything in nature – trees, fish, birds, even humans – is connected to everything else. Pesticides on plants or in water make animals sick when they eat the plants or drink the water. People could get sick from eating animals exposed to toxins like DDT, or breathing it in as it wafted through the air after being sprayed. Nothing in nature just stays put where you leave it — it becomes part of a system. People began to realize that they needed to take care of this planet. Today, Rachel’s legacy lives on with climate change activists and other environmentalists. When everything is connected, you can’t pretend that your actions don’t make a difference. You have to pay attention to how things affect each other in that web of people, animals, and the planet. And sometimes, like Rachel Carson, you have to change your plans in order to make the difference you want to see in the world.

Sources

Hile, Lori. (2015) Rachel Carson: Environmental Pioneer. Heineman Library, Chicago. 

Shea, George. (2006) Rachel Carson: Founder of the Environmental Movement. Blackbirch Press, Farmington Hills, MI.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Carson

The post History of Rachel Carson for Kids appeared first on Bedtime History: Podcast and Videos For Kids.

But it doesn’t walk the earth, it swims in the ocean! It’s a blue whale! These animals can be over 100 feet long, and weigh about 200 tons. Its heart is the size of a small car!

I’ve been pretty fortunate to be close to some of these amazing animals. Once, when I was paddleboarding with my son, a mother and baby humpback whale were playing in the water not far from us. Another time, we were snorkeling and could hear their songs in the water all around us. We’ve also been able to see them up close during boat rides.

Whales and dolphins have captivated people for thousands of years. Blue whales usually stay in deeper water, but dolphins often play and jump near the shore, and you don’t have to go too far out in a boat in many areas to glimpse a whale. Their size, power, and, in some cases, friendly nature, seem to pique our curiosity. There are cases of whales and dolphins warning people of danger, even saving their lives. And for thousands of years, we’ve watched and wondered about these magnificent creatures. 

Whales and Dolphins in Stories

If you’ve been listening for a while, it probably won’t surprise you to find out that people have been telling each other stories about whales and dolphins for thousands of years. The Maori, the native people of New Zealand, consider whales to be kaitiaki, or guides for sailors. In fact, a whale even played a part in helping them find their homeland! According to Maori legend, Paikea was the favorite son of his father, the chief of their tribe in what is now the Cook Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. Paikea’s brothers were jealous of him, and one night he overheard them plotting to drown him when he went out fishing the next day. Knowing of the plot, he was able to get away in his canoe, but he ended up drifting at sea, not knowing which direction to go to get back. As Paikea’s hope began to die, a whale picked him up and carried him all the way to New Zealand! There, he started his own settlement and became a beloved leader. The movie Whale Rider follows a modern Maori girl who wants to be the chief of her tribe, following in her grandfather’s footsteps. When she is told a girl can’t become chief, she decides to prove herself by riding a whale, just like Paikea. 

Arctic Tribes and Whales

Various arctic tribes in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and elsewhere, consider whales to be symbols of their way of life. They carve them into totem poles and have a long tradition of hunting them using traditional tools and weapons. Unlike the whaling industry that grew later, these hunters only take the small number of whales that the tribe will be able to use. 

Ancient Greeks and Dolphins

The Ancient Greeks were fascinated by dolphins. Their legends told of dolphins saving people lost at sea by riding them to shore. Ancient coins even show people riding dolphins. Dolphins were even said to have led a group of priests to the spot where they would set up one of most important religious sites in Ancient Greece, the Oracle at Delphi.

Jonah and the Whale

And of course, there’s the story of Jonah and the Whale in the bible. But did you know that this story is not only in the Christian Old Testament, but also the Jewish Torah and the Muslim Koran? In all three stories, Jonah disobeys God’s command to go into a city to preach about him. He boards a boat to run away, but soon the boat is caught in a storm. The sailors on the ship suspect that Jonah’s god is angry at him and causing the storm, so they throw him overboard. Soon, a huge whale swallows him, takes him all the way to the city where god wanted him to go, and spits him out on the shore.  

Whale Hunting

Although whales and dolphins are the helpers and even heroes of many folk stories, people haven’t always been heroes to them. Humans began hunting whales over 8,000 years ago. For people who lived near coastlines, they were a valuable source of food – one whale could feed a lot of people after all! Traditional hunting like this didn’t endanger whales, or bring them close to a point where there wouldn’t be any left. For a long time, people hunted from small boats with simple weapons, and took only the few whales they could use.

But by the 17th century, things were changing. Whaling, as whale-hunting was called, was becoming more sophisticated and more organized. And people were making a lot more money from it. Food wasn’t the main goal – people had found many uses for different parts of whales. The oil in the whale’s body could be used to lubricate machinery, and make oil lamps, candles, and soap. Sperm whales were especially valued: their bulbous heads alone could contain over 6 thousand pounds of oil! Baleen – the fibery material in many whales’ mouths that helps them catch their dinner of tiny krill – was lightweight and flexible, but strong. People used it to make the frames of umbrellas, mattress springs, and horse whips. 

Hunting the biggest creatures on Earth could be dangerous. Men would set out from a whaling ship in small rowboats, armed with harpoons that they would hurl by hand at these gigantic animals. Of course, most creatures do what they can to avoid being killed, and whales are no different. They could ram into the side of the boat or even lift the smaller boats out of the water by swimming up under them. Herman Melville based his famous novel, Moby Dick, on a real whaling voyage that ended tragically for the crew when a sperm whale attacked the ship, sinking it. In the novel, Melville imagines Captain Ahab, a whaler obsessed with getting revenge on the “white whale”, Moby Dick, who long ago bit off his leg. Ahab becomes so dangerously obsessed that he ends up losing his ship, his crew, and his life to the whale.

But whaling was big business in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century. As I mentioned, whale oil and baleen had many uses, so whalers could make a lot of money. And, as time went on, people invented more sophisticated tools for hunting whales. By the early 20th century, some species of whale were getting dangerously close to becoming extinct. But technology kept getting better (or worse, if you think about it from the whale’s perspective). People invented harpoon guns, and harpoons that would explode when they hit the whale. They began using high-tech electronics and helicopters to track the whales. 

Whales can Sing?

People began to question whether we should be hunting whales at all by the middle of the century.  Some species were close to extinction – there were so few left that scientists warned that soon, there wouldn’t be any. Scientists also began to realize that whales are intelligent and complex. Many live in groups and cooperate with each other to hunt and stay safe. They communicate with clicks, chirps and, in some cases, whole songs! A Navy engineer named Frank Watlington first recorded the songs of humpback whales in the 1960s. He shared these recordings with some friends who were biologists, Roger and Katharine Payne. The group was so astounded by the songs, they wanted people to appreciate how amazing and complex these creatures are. So they decided to release an album of whale songs! People loved the whale songs – they’re actually very relaxing and melodic, and the record was a hit! In fact, one of the recordings was sent into space on a probe called Voyager – so someday in the far-off future, aliens might even be able to appreciate these gifted whale vocalists.  

Not only did people like listening to the whales, the record inspired many people to start caring about whales. They began to realize that if we kept hunting them, we’d lose these amazing creatures. People  began to organize and protest commercial whaling. Some even went out on boats, trying to get between whaling ships and the whales they were hunting. The movement even inspired a science fiction movie, Star Trek IV, where space travelers go back in time to the 20th century to rescue a pair of humpback whales who can save the future Earth. 

Freeing the Whales

Popular culture had an impact in this case. Commercial whaling was finally banned in 1986. Not all countries agreed to the ban, but most did. Japan, Iceland, and Norway kept hunting whales, though Iceland has pledged to stop by 2024.

But by this time, some whales faced a different kind of mistreatment. Many orcas and dolphins were used for entertainment at water parks around the world. Some were well-treated, but many weren’t. They were often kept in tanks that were too small, and water that was too hot or not salty enough, like the ocean water they normally live in. This made many whales sick. Again, it was pop culture, a movie that spurred change. The movie Free Willy came out in 1993. In it, a lonely boy befriends a captive orca named Willy. He realizes that Willy is sick and wants to live free in the ocean. 

The movie sends the message that these majestic creatures belong in the wild, but the orca actor, Keiko, who starred in the movie was anything but free. In fact, Keiko lived in a too-small, too-hot tank in a Mexico City marine park, and actually was sick. Fans of the movie were outraged and wrote letters and raised funds to help free the real Willy. Finally, five years after the movie came out, Keiko was released into the wild in Iceland. He was fitted with a tracking device, and lived until 2003, or about 25 years old. Wild male orcas often live up to 35 years, but Keiko was already in poor health and probably not well-prepared to live in the wild. Today, dozens of orcas are still held in captivity. They often suffer from health problems, and don’t live as long as their wild cousins. 

Watching Whales and Dolphins

The best way to see whales today is in the wild!  Many organizations offer whale watching trips that let humans see whales in their natural habitat. You go out in a boat to an area where wild whales usually hang out and wait for them to show themselves. Sometimes you see just glimpses of backs and tails as they surface for air.  Watching the water spout from their blowholes is fun!, But other times you’ll see them breaching or rolling in the water, playing and showing off. If you find yourself near the ocean, you can also just sit and look out at the water. If you’re patient and stay long enough, you might see a group of dolphins, or pod, jumping and playing offshore. Be sure to bring a camera and binoculars! That way, both you and the creatures you’re watching can enjoy the experience. 

Sources

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/04/iceland-to-end-whaling-in-2024-demand-dwindles

https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/oceans-the-great-unknown-58.html

https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?13796/The-History-of-Whaling-and-the-International-Whaling-Commission-IWC

https://whalewatch.co.nz/our-people/indigenous-kiwi-and-paikea/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby-Dick

https://wwhandbook.iwc.int/en/species/blue-whale

Gish, Melissa. (2012) Whales. Creative Education. Mankato, MN.

Sandstrom, Donna. (2021) Orca Rescue! The True Story of an Orphaned Orca Named Springer. Kids Can Press. Toronto.

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Early Days of Wangari Maathai

This is the world Wangari Maathai knew as a child. Born in the rainy season in the highlands of Kenya to a farming family, she spent a lot of time outdoors. She learned to observe the natural world: the rains, the rocks, the plants, and animals. She grew her own garden, diligently tending her crops. She fetched water from a spring where it bubbled up out of the ground and found hideaways behind forest plants. She learned how the rain fed her family’s crops, which fed her family and provided them with income when they sold the excess. She learned how that rain flowed down to rivers, providing clean drinking water for people and animals. 

She learned to respect nature because it could be dangerous. Animals hid in the forest – leopards and elephants. She learned to care for it because it could also be fragile. Human beings could easily throw things out of balance by taking more than they needed from them, or not protecting what they gave them.  

When she was eight, Wangari left her little farming village. Her mother took her and her older brothers to the nearby town of Nyeri so her brothers could go to school. In the 1940s, girls in Kenya rarely went to school. Wangari went along so that she could help her mother around the house with cooking and cleaning. But within weeks of their arrival, it became clear that this plan would never work. Wangari asked her older brothers about what they were learning each day when they got home from school. Soon, one of the brothers asked their mother why she couldn’t just go to school too.  Her mother decided this wasn’t a bad idea, and soon, Wangari was going off to school each day too.

Wangari loved school and did well. She especially loved learning about the living world, the plants, and the animals that had been her constant companions when she lived in her small farming village. She graduated high school in 1959 but didn’t want to stop. As unusual as it was for a girl to finish high school in Kenya at that time, it was almost unheard of for one to go on to college. But Wangari heard about a program that sent Kenyan students to the United States for college. She applied and got a scholarship! Wangari was off to study at Mount Saint Scholastica College in Kansas. 

Educational Adventures of Wangari Maathai

The 1960s were a time of big social changes in the United States. Women and African Americans were fighting for rights that they had been denied for a long time. They wanted equal opportunities to work and go to school, and they wanted unfair laws to be struck down. It was an exciting time, and Wangari embraced the ideals of equality and freedom. She went on to get a Master’s degree in biology at the University of Pittsburgh before returning to Kenya.

While she was gone, Kenya had gone through some big changes of its own. The country had been controlled by the British empire since the 1920s, but in 1963, it gained its independence. When Wangari returned, she came back to a country that was finally run by its own people. Wangari was excited to be a part of her country’s history. She hoped she could help it become a place where all people have equal rights and opportunities.

But, Wangari still wasn’t done learning. She began studying to become a veterinary doctor at the University of Nairobi. She became the first woman in East Africa to earn such an advanced degree! She began working as a professor at the university, teaching others about veterinary medicine. 

Working Towards Democracy

Even though she was busy working at her job and starting a family by this time, Wangari kept thinking about how she could help make her country reach the ideals of democracy and equality. She took time to notice the problems facing the people of Kenya. One thing she noticed was that the lush, green hillsides she had explored as a child, the forests that had first taught her about the natural world, had changed. So many trees had been cut down that the land looked bare. Under British rule, people had cut down huge swaths of forest to make way for crops that could be sold for lots of money overseas, like coffee and tea. For someone who loved nature, like Wangari, this was a sad thing, but she knew it wasn’t just a problem for the trees. This deforestation was a problem for people too. 

Trees help the land in many ways. They provide shade on hot days and grow fruit that people and animals eat. With their deep, spreading roots, they keep the soil on mountainsides from washing away in the rain. With so many trees gone, the rainy season no longer meant good crops and drinking water. Instead, the rain washed all the best soil down the hillsides, and into the rivers below. This made it harder to grow crops, so farmers couldn’t earn enough money to support themselves. It also made the rivers dirty, so the water wasn’t good to drink. With fewer trees, people had to walk farther to find firewood, which made it harder to cook meals.

These problems especially affected women, because they were the ones who went to fetch water and firewood. They had to walk further and further to find clean water and large trees. 

Wangari wanted to help return her country to the beautiful, green landscape she’d known as a child, and, at the same time, fix the problems that deforestation had caused. If she could help people plant trees, they would also be able to grow more crops, so they could earn enough money to live off of. They would be able to find clean water and firewood nearby. 

Wangari worked with a women’s group to pay women in rural areas of the country to plant trees. This helped with both deforestation and poverty since these women now earned a little bit of money to help their families. She taught women all over Kenya how to plant trees in nurseries, then transplant them into wild areas. At the same time, she taught them about how trees helped keep the land and their communities healthy. She called this project the Green Belt Movement because they planted trees in rows that would look like long, green belts across the land.

At first, the Kenyan government didn’t like Wangari’s movement. Didn’t like that a woman was taking charge, didn’t like that people planting trees weren’t professional foresters, and didn’t like that she helped poor people take control of their lives. Many in the government thought it would be better to make money for themselves by selling the deforested land to people who wanted to build on it. Wangari was attacked, beaten, and arrested.  But she never gave up. The Green Belt Movement planted millions of trees in Kenya. Hillsides became green again. Trees helped hold soil in place so it didn’t wash away into the rivers, making them mucky and brown. 

Wangari was even elected to Kenya’s parliament in 1997. She got 98% of the vote, which is very unusual for an election! Later, she was made minister of the environment. She helped make policies that would ensure long-lasting change and protection for the environment. Wangari felt that protecting the environment was a critical part of keeping people healthy and provided for. She had seen how the trees planted by the Green Belt Movement helped people out of poverty, cleaned up rivers, and made the soil healthy again. 

Over time, Wangari’s movement started to mean more than just trees. People started to see that it was about helping people who were suffering, and when you do that, you create a more peaceful society. When people have what they need, they can help others too. They also saw that the small act of tree-planting, when many people did it, had a huge impact. This is how democracy works too: when enough people vote or speak out, small acts can amount to big changes.  Kenya was working towards becoming a democracy during this time, so this was an important idea to spread. The trees planted by the Green Belt Movement became symbols, reminding people of how they could overcome their differences, make better decisions together as a country, and live in peace.

Nobel Peace Prize

In 2004, Wangari received a huge honor. She won the Nobel Prize for Peace. The Nobel Peace Prize recognizes someone who has done big things to support peace between countries or help people who were suffering. With her trees, Wangari had helped end suffering for people in Kenya and create a healthy environment where they could live peacefully for years to come. She did this even while she faced serious opposition from her own government. She worked not only to improve the natural environment but to guide her country towards democracy so that everyone could have a voice in how things were run. 

Wangari became ill and passed away in 2011, but the movement she started continues. They still plant trees in Kenya, but also partner with other groups around the world to plant trees and tackle other problems like climate change and inequality. Even though the world faces a lot of big problems, it’s important to remember that even small acts can lead to big change, if enough people do them. There are so many things you can do to help, too! Plant a tree, donate food to a food pantry, or just say a kind thing to someone.  If you do it, maybe someone else will too. All these little acts add up, bringing us closer, as Wangari put it, to “a time when we have shed our fear and give hope to each other.” 

Sources

https://www.climatestotravel.com/climate/kenya

http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/ 

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2004/maathai/lecture/

https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1860/14.%20Kenya%20Country%20Profile.pdf

Crayton, Lisa A (2020). Wangari Maathai: Get to Know the Woman Who Planted Trees to Bring Change. Capstone, North Mankato, MN

Maathai, Wangari (2006) Unbowed. Random House, New York.

Swanson, Jennifer (2018) Environmental Activist Wangari Maathai. Lerner Publishing, Minneapolis.

The post History of Wangari Maathai for Kids appeared first on Bedtime History: Podcast and Videos For Kids.

Take a look around the room you’re in right now…

Do you see many things that you or a family member made with their own hands? Maybe you have a special baby blanket that someone knitted for you, or a few art projects hanging on the wall, but I’m guessing that most of the things in the room were made far away in factories. 

250 years ago, things would have been very different. Most of the items in your house would have been made by someone you knew. Either you or a family member would make them, or you would have traded or bought them from someone in your community who made them. Other things might have been handed down from your grandparents.

Back then, people had to know how to do many things to survive and keep themselves comfortable. A man would have a trade, but would also be able to grow food, chop wood, and build and fix things in his house. Women knew how to cook, sew, spin, and weave cloth, keep a garden, and churn butter. A few might have traded too. Children would also do a variety of jobs and chores to keep the household or farm going. A boy would become an apprentice to learn a trade around 13. Most labor was done by people, not machines. The machines that did exist were powered by livestock, like horses and oxen. 

Industrial Revolution

All this would change with the Industrial Revolution. No single invention or person set off the industrial revolution. In fact, the industrial revolution was happening for about 100 years. It’s also important to know that in this time period, these changes started in England, and then spread to the United States and Europe, so that is where we’ll focus in this episode. There were several important inventions and ideas that would change the world and make it look a lot more like it does now. These innovations would drastically change how people worked, and how they bought and made things. Three big types of things happened:

1. New machines were invented.
2. People figured out how to power those machines. At first, they used steam power, then later electricity, oil, and gas.
3. People started building factories, where they could make large quantities of products in one place, instead of having individuals make things in small workshops

But why did people suddenly start inventing all these new machines and ways of doing things? One reason was a population explosion in Britain in the 18th century. All the new babies being born meant that people needed more clothing, and they didn’t want to pay too much. The tradespeople who made cloth and clothing couldn’t keep up. So some of these tradespeople started to invent ways to make more thread and cloth in less time and with less work. They invented machines for spinning thread and weaving cloth.

Water Power

At first, the factories that did this spinning and weaving were located next to rivers. The river’s current would turn a giant wheel, which would power the moving parts of the machinery inside. As you can imagine, this could be inconvenient if you wanted to set up a factory but didn’t live near a river. It wouldn’t be long before people began to invent new ways of powering machines, so they wouldn’t need to be near rivers anymore. You’ve probably heard of engines, like the ones in cars and planes. But did you know that an engine is any machine that generates energy? Engines were about to change how people made things once more.

Steam Power

The first new source of power was the steam engine. When you think of a steam engine, you probably imagine a big train with smoke pouring out of its stack. That is one type of steam engine, but the first steam engines didn’t power trains. They were used in mines. Miners have to dig deep into the earth to find minerals or metals, and often, the mines would flood. The first steam engines were used to pump water out of mines, but they weren’t very powerful. 

A man named James Watt would change that. In 1765, he redesigned the steam engine to be much more powerful and efficient. This made it better at pumping water, but also made it useful for running machinery in factories. And of course, it paved the way for the train steam engine, which would make travel easier and faster!

Steam engines required wood or coal to operate. I won’t go into the details, but wood or coal would be burned in order to heat water to create steam, which in turn powered the machinery. Burning wood and coal, of course, creates a lot of smoke, and this caused a lot of air pollution. In areas with many factories, such as around Birmingham, England, tree trunks even turned black from the smoke! 

Eli Whitney

So far, all the inventions we’ve talked about were created in England, but inventiveness was spreading! In 1793, a tinkerer named Eli Whitney would invent the machine that would bring the industrial revolution to America. Whitney had traveled to South Carolina to work as a tutor. But, while he was visiting a friend’s plantation, he learned about a big problem that southern farmers had with their cotton crops: the white fluff was full of sticky seeds that had to be picked out by hand. It took one person a full day to pick the seeds out of one pound of cotton! 

In about 10 days, Whitney invented the cotton gin. The “gin” part is short for “engine.” It used a system of combs, rollers, and wire sieves to pull the seeds out of the fluff. One person operated the machine with a simple crank. The cotton gin made the work much faster, which meant farmers could make more money by growing cotton.

Unfortunately, many cotton growers decided to buy more slaves in order to process even more cotton using the new machine. Whitney didn’t expect this. He thought his machine would actually reduce slavery, since it did the same job that enslaved people had been doing. But instead, growers just decided to grow even more cotton. That meant more enslaved humans picking the cotton and operating the gins. 

The industrial revolution had some other unexpected results when it came to workers. Many tradespeople didn’t want things to change. They thought that the new machines would take away their work, and then they wouldn’t be able to support themselves. Some got so angry that they attacked the new factories and mills, smashing machinery and even burning some factories to the ground!

Child Labor

Once it became clear that the factories weren’t going away, many of these skilled workers didn’t want to work in them. So, instead of hiring grown-ups, some factory owners began to hire children instead. Children, some as young as five years old, went to work in factories for long, exhausting days. Factory owners paid them only a fraction of what they paid adults for dangerous, difficult work. It would be a long time before countries made laws saying that children need to be allowed to go to school and play, instead of working in factories for very little pay.

Some people, though, welcomed the opportunity to work in a factory. The factories also hired women. In the old system, most women didn’t learn a trade. They got married and did household and farm work to support the family. Working in factories allowed young women in some areas to earn and control their own money, instead of having to get married at a young age and rely on their husbands.

Before the industrial revolution, most people lived in rural areas or small towns, where they could grow food for themselves. As more and more products were made in factories, instead of small workshops, many more people moved from rural areas and farms into the cities where they could work in factories. Cities became crowded and dirty, with many people living in poverty. 

What were working conditions like during the Industrial Revolution?

The factories themselves were also crowded and dirty. On top of that, they were often poorly lit and stuffy. Some were so loud that workers went deaf. Workers were often exposed to materials that could make them sick, and machines that could injure them.  Unlike independent tradespeople, factory workers did the same task over and over again, and they didn’t have much say in how or when they worked. Workdays were long–often 12 hours–and many bosses were very strict. They would only allow workers a few short breaks throughout the day. Many would take away pay if a worker made a mistake or didn’t work fast enough.

The industrial revolution changed just about everything about how people lived and worked.  People went from being skilled craftspeople who had a lot of control over their work, to factory laborers forced to endure harsh, unfair conditions. It changed where people live, as they moved from rural areas to cities. This trend has continued all the way until today, as cities are still growing.

But even though it resulted in pollution, bad working conditions, and child labor, the industrial revolution also made many other innovations possible. We’ve only had time to talk about a few of the innovations of the early industrial revolution, but it wasn’t all about steam power and cloth manufacturing. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, we had cars, airplanes, and refrigeration. 

People also started to work together in new ways. Workers began to talk to each other. They formed labor unions and insisted that their bosses make factories safer. The idea of the weekend was born, and laws were passed to require better working conditions. Child labor was eventually outlawed. 

Conclusion

It’s important to remember that events in history often have good and bad consequences. We have to look at both in order to understand the full impact they had on the world. Knowing about the unintended consequences of past events can help us avoid similar results in the future. When we see things in the world today that might cause people, animals, or the planet to suffer, we can ask what we can do to help make things better. That way, we can keep building a better future, bit by bit.

Sources

https://www.britannica.com/summary/Industrial-Revolution-Key-Facts

https://www.eliwhitney.org/7/museum/about-eli-whitney/inventor

https://www.loc.gov/collections/america-at-work-and-leisure-1894-to-1915/articles-and-essays/america-at-work/

  March 14: Eli Whitney Patents the Machine He Thought Would Help End Slavery. Office of the State Historian, Connecticut. https://todayincthistory.com/2020/03/14/march-14-eli-whitney-patents-the-cotton-gin-2/ 

Major, Kenneth (1980) Pre-industrial Sources of Power: Muscle Power. History Today, 30:3.

https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/voices.uchicago.edu/dist/a/1299/files/2019/07/sti2014_the-pre-industrial-sources-of-power_-muscle-power-_-history-today.pdf

Mooney, Carla (2011) The Industrial Revolution: Investigate How Science and Technology Changed the World. Nomad Press, Vermont.

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Have you ever heard of Easter Island?  Many movies talk about it and some even say that is where the Easter Bunny lives.  But in fact, it is a real place that has nothing to do with the holiday of Easter. But many people know of Easter Island from the large famous face statues that are often seen in pictures of the place.  So why does Easter Island have this name?

Easter Island is a large island that covers nearly 65 square miles.  It is located in the South Pacific Ocean, far off of the west coast of the country of Chile in South America.  It is also an almost equal number of miles to the east of the island of Tahiti.  

Easter Island is the shape of a triangle and measures 14 miles long by 7 miles wide. It was formed by a series of volcano eruptions over time.  The island has many hills and caves within the rocks that go way back into the mountains.  Because much of the rock on the island is made of volcanic rock, it is easy for the rock to form caves and holes over time. 

Easter Island’s largest volcano is called Rano Kao.  It has a highest point that is called Mount Terevaka that reaches 1,665 feet (or 508 meters) above the sea.  The island is sub-tropical, which means it is located below the mid-point of the Earth called the equator and has sunny and dry weather. 

Many people have been confused about the name “Easter Island” and have wondered whether the island has something to do with the holiday of Easter. Is this where the Easter Bunny lives when he is not hopping around the world delivering eggs?  Let’s find out. 

The first people to live on Easter Island arrived on the island around the year 400 A.D. about 1,500 years ago. They were from another Polynesian island close by and they came to Easter Island looking for a new place to live.  These first people called the island “Rapa Nui”.  Because of its remote, or far away, location. The first peoples of Rapa Nui lived there on their own for hundreds of years before there were any other visitors from other countries. 

The traditions and stories of the Polynesian people say that the first king of Rapa Nui was named “Hoto-Matua”.  He was a ruler of a group of people that traveled around many islands in the area.  The group of explorers led by Hoto-Matua was searching for a new place to make their home. The story says that after traveling thousands of miles, the exploring group landed at a sandy beach on the island.  The island of Rapa Nui is actually quite rocky on the coast, or edge of the land near the water.

The traditional Polynesian story says that the group, led by their leader, Hoto-Matua, landed on the sandy beach, which was one of the only sandy spots on the coast. The group explored the island and found that it was a great place to live.  It was abundant with many fish and other types of food, and had a good climate or weather.  They decided to stay and build their home on this newly found island.  This is the start of the first peoples living on Rapa Nui, or Easter Island. The first peoples learned how to harvest food and fish on the island, including native fruit and plants.   They grew in size over time and developed a long and rich culture over the hundreds of years since the first group arrived.

One of the best pieces of evidence of the early people that lived on the island is the giant stone statues that have been found around Easter Island.  These statues are called “moai” and are part of what makes Easter Island famous.  You may have even seen pictures of these statues before.  They look like giant stone heads sticking out of the ground. 

There are over 900 moai statues all over Easter Island!  The statues are all around 13 feet (or 4 meters) high, with a weight of 13 tons!  They are huge faces and chests carved out of a type of rock called “tuff”.  Tuff is a light and porous rock, or rock with holes in it, that was made from volcanic ashes.  One thing that many people don’t know about the statues is that they actually go into the ground and continue at least partly underground.  They are a mystery that no one has yet to solve. 

No one today knows why these statues were made and why there are so many.  It is also a mystery why they were built so big and how they were moved around the island. This would have been an amazing feat of engineering by people living at that time!

One thing is for sure: the statues show that their creators, the early people of Easter Island, were very good craftsmen and engineers. They were very skilled at design and making strong structures.  

In modern times, researchers have determined that there were three different cultural phases, or separate times in human history there.  During the early and middle periods, statues were built and torn down and then rebuilt in the same places.  In the later period, the statues were built even bigger than before and are the statues that you can see pictures of today. 

The first European person to visit Easter Island was a Dutch explorer named Jacob Roggeveen.  He came exploring the area in the year 1722. Captain Roggeveen and his crew arrived on the island on the holiday of Easter.  To help remember the day and celebrate it, the Dutch named the island Paaseiland, which means “Easter Island” in Dutch. This is where the island gets its name! 

In 1770, the Spanish government in Peru sent a group of explorers to Easter Island. The explorers spent four days on the island.  They found that there were about 3,000 native people living on the island. 

Unfortunately, as more and more explorers started visiting the island, they also had diseases that the local islanders had not been around before.  As a result, many of the native islanders died and by 1877, there were only 111 native people living on the island. 

By 1877, Catholic explorers had come to the island to convert, or teach and change the local people to, Christianity.  By the late 19th century, almost all of the people living on the island were Christians. 

In 1888, Chile started using the land to raise sheep.  The government of Chile also appointed a governor to be in charge of Easter Island in 1965, and the island’s people all became Chilean citizens. 

Easter Island does not have any natural bays to form harbors that are places for boats to be parked away from the harsh weather of the ocean. The island’s largest village is called Hanga Roa. It was made into a World Heritage site in 1995, so it will not be developed into a tourist place full of hotels and other developments. 

Today, Easter Island is home to a mixed group of people.  Many of the people living on the island have Polynesian ancestors, or older relatives. The locals now mostly speak Spanish and there are some tourists that visit during the year. 

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Imagine you are hiking through the thick green mountains of Rwanda, a country deep in the heart of Africa.  It is wet and dark in the dense leaves, plants and vines and you and your team use machetes, which are large knives, to cut through the foliage as you make your way to your destination.  There is no path for you to follow, so you use animal tracks and signs.  Finally you cut through to an open area and stop in your tracks. Everyone goes quiet. Gorillas. Dozens of them lying around and frolicking in the mist. They are exactly what you have been looking for.

Tonight we are going to learn about Dian Fossey — an American woman who loved animals and grew up to become a famous zoologist, or someone who studies animal behavior.

Dian Fossey was born in San Francisco, California in 1932.  She grew up with her mother and stepfather and developed a strong love of animals at a young age.  She enjoyed horseback riding as a kid and teenager and she dreamed of becoming a veterinarian. A veterinarian is a doctor for animals.

Dian went to college in California and started studying veterinary courses, but decided to change and study occupational therapy instead.  Occupational therapy is a type of therapy that helps people who are injured or unwell to learn to use their bodies again.

After she finished college, Dian worked at a hospital in California.  She was offered a job as the director of a children’s hospital’s occupational department in Kentucky, so she moved there in 1955. In Kentucky, Dian lived on a farm and spent a lot of her free time with the farm animals.   

Dian had decided that she wanted to travel and see other parts of the world. And she really wanted to visit Africa.  So she saved up her money and in 1963, she traveled to Africa for the first time.  While she was there, she traveled to many countries, including Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and the Congo.  

In Africa Dian met a number of other scientists and researchers.  She was inspired by the work they were doing in different areas, including paleoanthropology, or the study of human fossils, and wildlife photography.  The wildlife photographers that she met were working on a movie about African gorillas.  They took Dian along on one of their trips to find the gorillas in their natural habitat.  A habitat is an animal’s natural home or environment.

When Dian first saw the gorillas on that trip, she became instantly in love with them.  She liked that they had individual personalities and were shy.  She wanted to return again to see the gorillas.

Dian went back home to Kentucky and met others who were interested in gorillas. She met a professor named Louis Leakey and together they made plans to conduct a long-term study on the gorillas of the Rwandan mountains.  

In order to conduct the research, Dian needed to live in Rwanda and so she moved there and spent her time living mostly in the mountains with the gorillas and watching them. She lived like this for four years until a war broke out and Diana had to leave to escape the war.

Dian continued to study gorillas and worked on getting a doctorate degree based on her research at Cambridge University in England.

In 1983, Dian published a book about her research and her experience living with the gorillas.  It was called Gorillas in the Mist and it became a best-selling book. The book was even made into a popular movie in 1988.

Unfortunately there were people who did not like Dian and the work she was doing.  Many people at the time tried to hunt gorillas and kill them, since they could get a lot of money for the gorillas bodies and parts.  Dian spoke out against these hunters or “poachers” and because of this many of these hunters did not like her.  They did not want her message of protecting the gorillas to be spread. 

Sadly, on December 26, 1985, Fossey was found dead at her Rwandan forest camp. She had been killed by poachers.  However, no one was ever caught or put in in jail for what happened.

Dian’s work with gorillas continues through an international research fund called the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.  The Fund continues to operate and has expanded to other areas of Africa.  The Fund’s goal is to protect mountain gorillas and other endangered species in the gorillas’ habitats.

Dian Fossey is considered the leading researcher on the behavior of mountain gorillas.  She worked hard throughout her life to try to protect these animals from extinction and from hunters and poachers who wanted to kill them.  Dian’s love of the gorillas helped her to see them as highly intelligent individual animals.  And her passion for helping to save them made the gorillas lives better. 

From Dian, we can learn about the power of an individual to make a difference in the lives of other beings, including animals.  Sometimes one person’s interests and efforts can help save an entire species of animal.  She showed bravery in travelling to Africa and facing the dangers of the jungles and poachers who disagreed with her.  And her strength and bravery continue to inspire others. 

Is there a type of animal that you love?  Are there ways that you can learn more about these animals? Are there ways that you can get involved in caring for them?  Like Dian, you can make a difference in the lives of animals that you love.

The post The History of Dian Fossey for Kids appeared first on Bedtime History: Podcast and Videos For Kids.

Close your eyes and imagine you are swimming deep in the ocean. You look up and see the sunlight shimmering through the surface far above you. The water is dark and blue and schools of silvery fish swim all around you. You turn and see a large manta ray glide gracefully by. Below you is the glittering sand and red and blue coral; and a family of sea turtles swimming by on their way toward the beach. You take a deep breath from your regulator, the device used to breath underwater. On your back is an oxygen tank and covering your eyes is a scuba mask. Your feet have fins and you wear a wetsuit to keep your body warm. All of these incredible inventions work together to make you like a fish. You kick your fins and glide further through the water, admiring the underwater forest of kelp, coral and fish that thrive in this beautiful ocean habitat. 

Jacques (pronounced “Zhock”) Cousteau who had a deep love for the sea and without his inventions and passion for ocean life, you would not be able to breathe like a fish underwater. 

Jacques was born on June 11, 1910 in the town of Saint-André-de-Cubzac, France. At age 4 Jacque learned how to swim and this began his great love for the ocean. Jacque didn’t always do the best in school, at times he had trouble learning, but he was very curious. His parents gave him a camera and he took it apart and put it back together again, because he was very interested in how it worked. He also liked to make films with his camera. In school, because Jacque wasn’t doing very well, his parents sent him to a different school. There Jacque ended up doing better as he put more effort into his school work.

Jacques spent one summer in a camp in Vermont, a state in the United States. He said that one of the camp leaders didn’t like him very much, so he made Jacques clean tree branches and other debris off the bottom of the lake. So Jacques spent many hours that summer diving to the bottom of that lake. This is how he learned to dive. 

Jacque loved the water and swimming, but he also wanted to be a pilot for the French Navy. In 1930 Jacque joined the French Naval Academy and graduated as a gunnery officer. As part of the Navy’s information service, he travelled around and took his camera with him. He used it to take pictures of exotic locations in the Indian and South Pacific Oceans. The Navy also taught him self-discipline and how to be a sailor, someone who understands the ocean and can drive a boat on it.

One night in 1933 while in the Navy, Jacque borrowed his father’s sports car to drive to a wedding. Along the way his headlights went out and he crashed into another car, resulting in a very dangerous accident. Jacques survived, but both of his arms were broken ending his chances of becoming a pilot. In order to get his arms’ strength back, Jacque began swimming again in the Mediterranean Sea. Once when he was swimming in the ocean a friend gave him a pair of goggles to try out. He used the goggles and looked under the water. He was amazed at what he saw and wanted to be able to dive deeper and explore further. Even though he wouldn’t be able to become a pilot, he found a new passion, exploring the ocean. Sometimes life doesn’t always turn out how we plan, so we need to be resilient, which means to bounce back and setting new goals as our circumstances change. 

In 1937 Jacque met his first wife, Simone Melchior, and later had two sons, Jean-Michel and Phillipe. Not long after this, Germany went to war with other countries in Europe, leading to World War 2. Soon the city of Paris, France fell to the German Army and Jacques and his family fled to the small town of Megreve. During this time, Jacques wanted to find a way to be able to dive deeper in the ocean and breath underwater. In 1943 he met an inventor named Emile Gagnan, a French engineer, and together they experimented with ways to breath underwater. At this time Gagnan and Jacques invented better snorkel hoses, bodysuits and breathing devices. They called their first breathing device an aqua-lung. It used an oxygen tank and changed the pressure of the water before it entered the divers mouth, so the diver could breathe underwater. 

Not only did Jacques want to breathe underwater, he wanted to make a movie about it so he could share it with his friends. So he also designed a waterproof camera. With his new inventions, Jacques made his first two movies, also called documentaries, called “18 Meters Deep” and “Shipwrecks.” 

At this time, the world was still at war, so Jacques joined the French Resistance to continue to fight Germany and Italy to leave their country. Jacques and others spied on the Italian Army and let the Allies know where they were going from and to. Later he was given an award for his service. 

When the war was over, Jacques used his diving skills and new inventions to clear mines and wrecked ships from under the water along the coast of France. At this time, he also kept improving his equipment and making underwater films. 

To humans, most of the undersea world had yet to be explored. Jacque understood this and wanted to discover it first. Instead of astronauts, who explore space, Jacque called his divers “acquanots.” 

In 1948, Jacques and several other divers gathered all their equipment and started off on an adventure to find a long lost shipwreck. The ancient Roman ship was called the Mahdia. The ship had been carrying many works of Greek art when it ran into a storm and sunk off the coast of Tunisia in 80 B.C. Together with his team, Jacques made many dives down to the shipwreck, gathered works of art and made a movie of their adventures. This was the start of what became known as underwater archeology.

In 1950, an Irish millionaire named Thomas Loel Guinness was interested in Jacque’s adventures. He bought a ship and let Jacques rent it for 1 French dollar a year. Jacques and his team turned the ship into a research and diving boat and named it Calypso. They had a ship but very little money for fuel or other costs for their adventures. Jacque’s wife, Simone, believed in what he was doing, so she offered to sell all of her expensive jewelry to fund their first mission.  

Besides his wife’s jewelry, Jacques knew in order to pay for his adventures, he would have to make even more money. He knew getting the world interested in what he was doing would be the key to doing it. He published a book called The Silent World. It was very successful and he used the money from it to pay for his next expedition to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.

In 1954, Jacques and his crew explored the waters off the coast of Abu Dhabi for a British oil company. They used the film from this trip to make a movie called The Silent World, which went on to win the best movie award at the Cannes Film Festival. This made Jacques even more famous. Around this time he and his crew invented what they called “the diving saucer,” which was a small submarine they could use to go even deeper into the ocean.

In 1966, Jacques saw that TV was becoming very popular, so he went to the American TV companies and convinced them to pay him for a TV show about his adventures called “The World of Jacques Cousteau.” Later he created another show called “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.” Millions of people all over the world watched Jacques explain the ocean from the Calypso. He was recognized for his French accent and red cap. 

During his early explorations, Jacque’s adventures had been paid for by oil companies drilling offshore. Over time, and with the help of his son, Phillipe, Jacques began to recognize that human activity such as offshore drilling was hurting many parts of the ocean and ocean life. In 1973 he founded the Cousteau Society and refocused his movies and books on what could be done to stop the damage being done to the ocean. Before long the society had 300,000 members worldwide. His society’s efforts did much to inform others what could be done in order to take better care of our planet.

In 1972, Jacques and his team packed up and left port for one of his greatest adventures. He would sail the Calypso to Antarctica and explore one of the last untouched oceans in the world. This was also made into a movie called Cousteau in the Antarctic. 

Jacque went on to make more movies and write more books. In 1985 he won the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom and in 1990 his wife passed away. He married Francine Triplet and with her had two more children. Then in 1997 in Paris, Jacque passed away himself.  

Jacques was very successful in life, but his life wasn’t always easy. When he was young he broke his arms and lost his dream of becoming a pilot, but he made the best of it and found a new world to explore instead. 

Over the years he made more than 120 TV movies and 50 books. He shared his love for the sea with the world through his movies and as a result of his passion many came to appreciate the amazing wonders below the surface of the ocean.

Jacques once said “the sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonders forever.” And “When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself.”

Like Jacque, you can be curious about the world around you. Because there was no way to explore the underwater world, that didn’t stop Jacques from exploring it. He invented a way to breathe underwater! It’s fun to dream about great adventures, but real adventures take learning and work and planning. If there’s a dream you have, be sure to take the time to plan out what you can do to achieve it. They may mean reading more about it in a book or on the Internet, or trying a little harder in school so you have the skills to reach that dream. Like Jacques, you can learn to see the world as a wondrous place. When you’re curious life is never boring! Find something you’re interested in, check out a book about it, or watch a video. Curiosity keeps life exciting! Remember, there’s no end to the things you can learn and explore in the wondrous world in which we live. 

The post The History of Jaques Cousteau for Kids appeared first on Bedtime History: Podcast and Videos For Kids.

Close your eyes and imagine that you’re living in a futuristic city. Looking at the horizon, you can see towering wind turbines gently rotating in the wind. On the other side, you can see a whole field of solar panels. A nearby dam uses river water to produce even more electricity. The air you breathe is clean and fresh. The cars and other vehicles don’t give off any smoke or pollution. Your surroundings are clean and green, with plants growing all around you. Far away, you can see an old power plant, which is being demolished to make way for new, alternative energy sources. You can also see several large factories nearby, but none of them are emitting black smoke! This is what a city looks like where alternative energy rules the world .

So, what actually is alternative energy? As you may know, today we rely almost completely on petroleum and coal-based energy sources which are called fossil fuels. Energy companies obtain these resources from deep inside the earth’s surface and refine it to produce different fuels, like gas, gasoline, diesel and kerosene. These fuels are burned in power plants to produce electricity. Petroleum was formed by the remains of tiny plants and animals that died millions of years ago. Coal, on the other hand, was formed by larger plants like ferns. These dead materials were covered by layers of mud, rock, and soil over the years. Because of the pressure caused by all the top layers and the heat from earth’s core, the plant and animal remains transformed into petroleum and coal.  Because it took millions of years for petroleum and coal to form, this means that the amount of fossil fuel resources in the world are limited and won’t last forever. Since the number of people in the world  and businesses  in the world keep increasing and advancing, the need  for energy is also rising.  This is why finding new ways to harness energy is so important! Luckily, the world already has a lot of alternative energy sources and smart scientists and engineers are always working on finding new ways to harness energy and improve the technology we already have.

The alternative sources of energy include solar power, wind power, hydro power, tidal energy, geothermal energy, and biomass energy. These are called renewable energy, because they are naturally replenished in a short amount of time unlike petroleum. For example, there’s always more sun and wind! 

First let’s talk about solar energy. Solar energy is the energy we get from the sun. The sun is an incredibly huge, ball of energy which lights Earth with its rays we receive as sunlight. For thousands of years, people have used the sun’s energy to cook food, dry clothes, and keep warm. In our day, people have invented technologies to transform sunlight or solar energy into electrical power. This is done by solar cells, which are also called “photovoltaic” cells. “Photo” means “light” in Latin and “voltaic” stands for “electricity”. So, it’s basically turning sunlight into electricity! Pretty amazing, right? Solar panels are made by putting together many solar cells. If you’ve ever seen shiny panels on rooftops, those are solar panels. A few of my neighbors have them. In Arizona, solar panels are popular because we get LOTS of sunshine. It can also save people money, because the panels capture the light energy from the sun and turn it into electricity that can be used to power all the electric equipment in their house. Solar panels are sometimes used to power boats, food trucks, buildings, and satellites. Although solar energy IS renewable, how much energy they can produce depends on the time of day, season of the year and location in the world. For example, Arizona is much better for solar panels than a place like England that is often cloudy.

Now, let’s talk about wind energy. Wind energy is made from the wind, which is freely available to us just like sunlight. During the middle ages, people used wind power to pump water or grind grains. They built windmills to do that. Nowadays, people use a large structure called a wind turbine to make electricity using wind power. You may have seen these wind turbines as very tall structures that have long blades to capture the wind. Wind turbines can be around 400 feet tall, because the turbine blades need to reach high up into the atmosphere where the wind is faster than on the ground. The power of the wind is transformed into electricity by a small machine called a turbine generator which is connected to the turbine blades. Energy companies build hundreds of wind turbines in large fields where there are a lot of wind. These areas covered with wind turbines are called “wind farms”. When our family drives to California we pass through a huge wind farm. If you’ve never seen a wind farm look up pictures of San Gorgonio Pass. It’s pretty amazing.

The next form of alternative energy is hydropower or hydro energy and is made by using the power of moving water. In the past, people have used the power of water by making water wheels in rivers. Ancient Egyptians used hydro energy to grind grains and early Americans used it to saw wood. In the 1800’s, scientists discovered how to make electrical energy using hydro energy by turning the turbines of a generator. So, it works a little bit like wind power. To harness hydro energy today, people build a dam across a river which creates a water reservoir, which is like a man-made lake. By making a reservoir, we can have a controlled flow of water which can be used to generate electricity. That is, powerplant workers can control the amount and speed of the water flowing out of the dam. So, unlike solar or wind energy, hydro power is more constant and controllable. In Arizona we have the Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam that generate a ton of electricity using hydro power. Be sure to lookup pictures of these impressive dams.

Tidal power is another type of hydro power. But instead of using inland waters like rivers and reservoirs, the energy of seawater is used to make electricity from tidal energy. Ocean tides usually occur twice daily, and tidal powerplants use turbine generators to convert that energy into electricity. Tidal turbines are placed in the path of the tidal waves. When the waves hit the turbine blades, they begin to spin. This movement is transformed into electric power using the turbine generators. So, you can see that the design of wind turbines and hydro turbines are very similar. However, tidal power can change based on the season. We cannot control it like how we control the power generated from a reservoir.

Geothermal energy is a form of alternative energy, that is obtained from the earth’s core. You may already know that the core of the earth is packed with heat. You can sometimes see this heat coming out of volcanoes and geysers. Geothermal energy can be used for heating, cooking and in electricity generation. We get it by circulating water or other liquids through underground tubes. The liquids absorb the geothermal heat and bring it back up. The captured heat can be directly used for heating. It can also be used to produce electricity using steam turbines.

Another really interesting form of alternative energy is biomass. Biomass is  biological materials such as sugar cane, straw, wood chips and many other plant materials. These can be burned to generate electricity instead of burning fossil fuels. Biomass can also be used to make other types of fuel such as diesel and biogas that can replace petroleum-based fuels. This makes biomass different and more important than the other types of alternative energy we discussed. That’s because biomass can be used to produce solid, liquid and gaseous forms of energy instead of just electricity. 

It’s pretty exciting to consider all of the new forms of energy that have been developed over the last 100 years and the improvements that are happening every day. Does alternative energy interest you? If so, do an internet search to watch videos of some of the amazing things people are doing to use renewable energy and what is being done at places like wind and solar farms. Also, more and more engineers and inventors are needed to solve the energy problems we have. Does engineering interest you? If so, math and science are important subjects to improve at. Also, being creative and coming up with lots of ideas. Can you think of an interesting way to use alternative energy to power something you use everyday?

With all of the new inventions, we have more and more options and not one of them is perfect, so many people believe a combination of technologies will solve the problems of pollution while sustaining all of our energy needs. There are over 7 billion people on this planet, so we need to find ways we can all live here and have enough energy without polluting this precious gift we can be given. 

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