Environment Nature

Travel through Rumpke’s recycling center to find a plastic jug? Trash that can be recycled takes a ride on the conveyor belt to become something new! Try to find the milk jug on the conveyor belt! Trash at the factory goes through many machines to make sure it can be recycled. Can you guess what the milk jug will help make once it leaves the factory? What other types of trash go on the conveyor belt?

What happens to trash after the garbage truck picks it up? Where does it go? The problem of too much trash is hurting the planet. Recycling, reusing, composting and creating new ways to make less trash is a start! Learn to recycle old furniture, and how safer materials are being developed that can easily decompose. People are working hard every day on new ways to have a trash-free future! Are you?

Making a compost pile is a simple way to dispose of waste—like leaves, grass clippings, fruit, and vegetable peels—and turns them into healthy food for plants! Cece notices how nice Jane’s flowers are and wants to make a compost pile, too! Jane and Click show their friends how to make compost and you can learn too! What else is needed to help the compost decompose?

Yo helps his father recycle garbage and learns what types of trash go into the recycling bin. Yo learns his fleece vest is made of plastic and that special factories recycle the plastic and melt it down into new things like toys and his favorite fleece vest! Can you guess which trash goes into the blue bins? Yo wants to surprise his mother with a special present–knowing how to recycle!

Did you know about 8 million tons of plastic enter the ocean each year? Learn about the Washed Ashore project that helps to clean up beaches through re-use of collected plastic—and then is recycled into art! Which sculpture in the project is your favorite?

We live in a world of seeds. From our morning toast to the cotton in our clothes, they are quite literally the stuff and staff of life, supporting diets, economies, and civilizations around the globe. Just as the search for nutmeg and the humble peppercorn drove the Age of Discovery, so did coffee beans help fuel the Enlightenment and cottonseed help spark the Industrial Revolution. And from the fall of Rome to the Arab Spring, the fate of nations continues to hinge on the seeds of a Middle Eastern grass known as wheat.

Since its inception, however, America’s public land system has been embroiled in controversy - caught in the push and pull between the desire to develop the valuable resources the land holds or conserve them. Alarmed by rising tensions over the use of these lands, hunter, angler, and outdoor enthusiast Mark Kenyon set out to explore the spaces involved in this heated debate, and learn firsthand how they came to be and what their future might hold.

When we see a bird flying from branch to branch happily chirping, it is easy to imagine they lead a simple life of freedom, flight, and feathers. What we don't see is the arduous, life-threatening challenges they face at every moment. Beaks, Bones and Bird Songs guides the listener through the myriad, and often almost miraculous, things that birds do every day to merely stay alive. Like the goldfinch, which manages extreme weather changes by doubling the density of its plumage in winter.

We share this beautiful planet we call home with countless living creatures, from monarch butterflies and falcons to koalas and dolphins. And just like us, animals everywhere are faced with the growing threat of climate change. Featuring seven categories of animals, this book offers a roadmap for change and an invitation to explore the outdoors with fascinating facts, hope-filled stories, and hands-on STEAM activities. Each section includes biographies of adventurers, scientists, and artists from all over the world who used their passion and skills to become bold allies for nature.

Forest bathing is a gentle, meditative practice of connecting with nature. Simply being present with all of our senses, in a forest or other wild area, can produce mental, emotional, and physical health benefits. It is a simple, accessible antidote to our nature-starved lives and can inspire us to become advocates for healing our relationships with the more-than-human world. This book is both an invitation to take up the practice of forest bathing and an inspiration to connect with nature as a way to help heal both the planet and humanity.

Laurie David - producer of the HBO special Too Hot Not to Handle and Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth - educates young listeners about the ecological crisis called Global Warming.The dangers posed are very real, and the planet may undergo drastic changes within this century. People do, however, have the power to fight back and save the earth, and they can start by listening to this audiobook.

Birds, Jim Robbins posits, are our most vital connection to nature. They compel us to look to the skies, both literally and metaphorically, draw us out into nature to seek their beauty, and let us experience vicariously what it is like to be weightless. Birds have helped us in so many of our human endeavors: learning to fly, providing clothing and food, and helping us better understand the human brain and body.

The Wanderer is the first book ever to chart a wolf's movement, almost to the day, for an extended period of time. Informed by unique access to research and field notes, award-winning author, photographer, and naturalist Tom Walker shares the story of Wolf 258, nicknamed "the Wanderer," part of a research project that studied wolves in Alaska's Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve for more than two decades.

Talking to women from around the world, Philippa studies and celebrates what it means to be a wild woman. From the sixteenth-century botanist who was the first woman to circumnavigate the globe to modern-day women responding to bear attacks in Yellowstone, working to rewild reserves in South Africa, photographing Caribou in the Arctic and more, Philippa examines how these women benefit from a life spent in the wilderness and also considers what the natural world gains from them.

In her new essay collection, the beloved author of High Tide in Tucson brings to us from one of history's darker moments an extended love song to the world we still have. From its opening parable gleaned from recent news about a lost child saved in an astonishing way, the book moves on to consider a world of surprising and hopeful prospects, ranging from an inventive conservation scheme in a remote jungle to the backyard flock of chickens tended by the author's small daughter.

Marie Russell and Detective Roméo Leduc are finally getting married, but the joyous occasion is overshadowed by the unexpected arrival of Magnus Sørenson, renowned eco-warrior and Marie’s first great love. When Magnus’ plans for a dramatic environmental protest take a dark turn, Roméo and Marie are forced to abandon their honeymoon in the Laurentians in order to catch a killer, unearthing long-buried secrets along the way.

It may be a wonderful world, but as Dan Riskin explains, it's also a dangerous, disturbing, and disgusting one. At every turn, it seems, living things are trying to eat us, poison us, use our bodies as their homes, or have us spread their eggs. In Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You, Riskin is our guide through the natural world at its most gloriously ruthless. Using the seven deadly sins as a road map, Riskin offers dozens of jaw-dropping examples that illuminate how brutal nature can truly be.

A century ago, mountain lions were vilified as a threat to livestock and hunted to the verge of extinction. Its recovery has led to an unexpected conundrum: Do more mountain lions mean they're a threat to humans and domestic animals? Or, are mountain lions still in need of our help and protection as their habitat dwindles? Mountain lion biologist and expert Mark Elbroch welcomes these tough questions. He dismisses long-held myths about mountain lions and uses groundbreaking science to uncover important new information about their social habits.

The Adirondack region of New York's rural North Country forms the nation's largest State Park, with a territory as large as Vermont. Planning experts view the APA as a triumph of sustainability that balances human activity with the preservation of wild ecosystems. The truth isn't as pretty. The story of the APA, told here for the first time, is a complex, troubled tale of political dueling and communities pushed to the brink of violence.

Kneeling in a muddy field, clutching something soft and blue-black, Marc Hamer vows he will stop trapping moles - forever. In this earnest, understated, and sublime work of nonfiction literature, the molecatcher shares what led him to this strange career: from sleeping among hedges as a homeless teen, to toiling on the railway, to weeding windswept gardens in Wales. Hamer infuses his wanderings with radiant poetry and stark, simple observations on nature’s oft-ignored details.