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Pretzel, M & Ms, and Goldfish, and Cheez-Its Oh My!

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Pretzel, M & Ms, and Goldfish, and Cheez-Its Oh My!

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In this activity, the students will build a snack selling market. Each group will represent a "country" that has a valuable resource to sell. In this column are some primary and secondary resources that I will use during this lesson on producers and consumers and the true meaning of cost.

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These websites post fun activities to do with students to include:interactive games, printable worksheets, and a MapMaker Kit. The MapMaker Kit can be used with this unit I am creating or it can also be used with other units. It is a printable activity so students can work on it together in groups.
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/activity/geography-of-a-pencil/

https://www.econedlink.org/teacher-lesson/457/We-are-Consumers-Producers

http://www.c3teachers.org/inquiries/economic-interdependence/

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Goldfish Cracker Ingredients list from Pepperidge Farms Wesbite. Students will come to the board and circle the ingredients they think are in the Goldfish Crackers.

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I will display graphite, a piece of soft wood, yellow paint, rubber, and aluminum and see if students can guess what all these things make.

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Distribute pencils to students. Ask: What materials or natural resources do you think make up a pencil? Organize student ideas on the board. Then project the Geography of a Pencil handout. Discuss students' ideas while comparing them to the information in Table 1 on the handout. Describe each of the component parts of a pencil while pointing to each of the materials.
2. Discuss the geographic origins of the materials used to make a pencil.
Ask: Now that you know the different materials in a pencil, where do you think all of these materials originate? Have students point on the World Political MapMaker Kit to countries they think might produce parts of a pencil. Explain to students that these materials come from all around the world, and that many countries contribute different materials used to make a pencil. Show students Table 2 on the handout Geography of a Pencil and explain that the countries included are the top producer s of these materials. Tell students that these five materials come from many different areas, but that the countries listed on the handout are some of the top producers of the materials. Using a world atlas for reference, have students identify these countries on the World Political MapMaker Kit, and have a volunteer label the countries with the product name. You can either do this as a whole class with the World Political Mega Map or in groups with the smaller tabletop version.
3. Divide students into country groupings.
Divide students into six groups, with each of five groups representing one of the countries where each of the materials is made. Assign the sixth group to represent the United States, or the country in which you live. Have each group make a sign with its country name. Have students also include the country flag, if time permits. Tell groups of students (except the United States group) that they represent a company in that country that wants to build a factory to produce pencils, but they need to figure out how to get the other materials to make a pencil. Tell the United States group that they are the consumer and need to purchase finished pencils for their company to distribute to schools in the United States.
4. Brainstorm methods of moving goods around the globe.
Ask groups to brainstorm and write a list of the different methods of transportation that are used in trade to move goods around the world. Invite each group to write on the board one of the methods they have listed. As a whole class, discuss some of the benefits and challenges of the different methods of transportation. Organize this list in a chart that everyone can share or see. As part of this exercise, ask: How fast are the different methods? How much of a good can be transported at one time? What other factors might affect the use of a method? Encourage students to think about the costs of fuel to power the ship, plane, train, truck or other vehicle. Other factors students may identify or recognize include political disputes or environmental hazards.
5. Have groups use the map to create networks of transportation.
Explain that students will next create a plan to make and sell their company's pencils. Students will need to use the map to determine where they can get the necessary materials. Have them work on the map to create a materials flow chart using lines, arrows, and symbols to show where they plan to get materials and how the materials will get to them. Then have students use arrows, lines, and symbols to show how they plan to move their products to the United States. Have each group use a different color to represent their company's materials transportation plan. Have the United States group do a similar exercise, but limited to how they can potentially get pencils from each of the countries. Tell the United States group that they will later have to pick one of the companies from which to purchase pencils.
6. Have groups present their plans and discuss.
Have each of the five groups present their plan to the class. Have the sixth group-the United States or the country where you live-take a moment to decide which company's pencils might be the best option for them to purchase. Then have them explain why. Allow students from other countries to try to convince the buyer country to purchase their pencils instead. Encourage students to reflect on how the countries are connected through the pencil production process. Ask: In what ways does the United States (or the country in which you reside) depend on other countries for the pencils we use? What other products can you think of that might be, like the pencil, "connected" to more than one country?

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Distribute pencils to students. Ask: What materials or natural resources do you think make up a pencil? Organize student ideas on the board. Then project the Geography of a Pencil handout. Discuss students' ideas while comparing them to the information in Table 1 on the handout.

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How Pencils are made video:
The purpose of this YouTube video is to allow students to see all the resources it takes to make just one pencil. From the graphite that has to be mined to the yellow paint used to coat the outside of the pencil, there are many environmental and human resources used in this process. Some questions that I could ask after this video are:
Where does the wood come from to make these pencils? Just any trees? Where does the "lead" come from? Who mines it? How much do they get paid? Do you use our pencils wisely in this classroom?

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The type of wood that is chosen to make pencils is incense cedar. This variety of wood is chosen due to its softness. The World Watch institutes details the issues that surround the use of incense cedar. These issues include: the depleting of forest reserves, contaminating waterways, and choking the air with pollutants

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Life-Cycle Studies: Pencils | Worldwatch Institute

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European and American manufacturers perfected wood-cased pencils by the nineteenth century, but these regions now mostly import their pencils from the world's largest pencil manufacturers in China, Indonesia, Brazil, Costa Rica, and Thailand. The U.S. domestic industry is worth $1 billion per year, but the country still imports more than 18 million pencils annually.

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This article from BBC news shows students how innovation can help us wisely use our planet’s resources. This Kenyan pencil making company has hired a special needs school to collect the newspapers for them, therefore creating revenue for the school. I’m thinking about how thousands of newspapers are thrown away each year. Why not reuse this paper instead of putting it into the landfill? I love this idea. I really want to make my own pencils with my students. I think that would be such a meaningful activity and then we could sell them to help a charity or something.

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If paper is made out of wood, what happens if you try to reverse the process?

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Not only does this company sell their product here, but they also have some great information about how the production of pencils is affecting deforestation. The facts presented are very compelling resources that could be used in this lesson about supply and demand. There is also a neat poster that I could print out and post in the classroom.

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ECO-FRIENDLY PENCILS- NO TREES CUT FOR THEM - BACK ON DEMAND by ShivTat Agro LLP | Crowdfunding India

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ECO-FRIENDLY PENCILS- NO TREES CUT FOR THEM - BACK ON DEMAND by ShivTat Agro LLP | Crowdfunding India

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Pencils made from recycled paper, rather than wood! Save Trees, Save Environment!! Crowdfunding India!

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This PDF File takes students on a journey to discover how many people it takes to make a pencil. This is such a create resource because it has a lot of pictures and information that show the amount resources it take to make a pencil.

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How It’s Made – Palm Oil (video)
This video shows students how palm oil is harvested and made. A portion of this video also shows how they cross pollinate to produce the plants that provide the best yield. Plantations in Indonesia produce 85% of the world palm oil.

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This website is a great resource. It explains what palm oil is and lists what products use this oil in their production. One other help detail about this website is that it lists the wording that companies use to list palm oil as an ingredient. It is interesting to note all the different ways that this oil is listed on nutrition labels.

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GreenPalm :: What types of products and industries use palm oil?

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Palm oil and palm kernel oil are found in 50% of the products on supermarket shelves. Why is palm oil so popular for food and personal care products?

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Video about how the harvesting of Palm Oils is harming the environment. After watching this video, I will never buy processed snacks again, and will take note of what soaps I purchase. This video shows the view how the demand for Palm Oil is costing this world much more than just $.89 for a bar of soap or $2.00 for a box of Cheez-Its©

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Consumer knowledge on the destructiveness of palm oil production -found in everything from ice cream and crackers to detergents and cosmetics, is rising. Increased awareness is sorely needed, as more and more forests are cleared to make way for palm oil plantations.

There are a lot of questions around the use of palm oil. The Rainforest Action Network, which has been working on this issue for some time, has an excellent factsheet on palm oil, which is briefly excerpted here:
What is Palm Oil?
Palm oil is a globally traded agricultural commodity that touches our lives in every trip we make to the supermarket. Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from pulping the fruit of oil palms originally native to Africa. Palm oil is commonly used as a cooking oil in Africa, Southeast Asia and parts of Brazil and its consumption is on the rise worldwide. The recent rise in the use of palm oil in the U.S. food industry has resulted largely from changed labeling requirements that have caused a switch away from using trans fats.
Why is Palm Oil a Problem?
Palm oil has become one of the world's leading causes of rainforest destruction. Unchecked expansion has pushed palm oil plantations into the heart of some of the world's most culturally and biologically diverse ecosystems and palm oil is among the biggest threats driving iconic wildlife species like the Sumatran orangutan to the brink of extinction in Indonesia. This large-scale destruction of rainforests and carbon-rich peatland landscapes is releasing globally significant quantities of carbon pollution into the atmosphere, making palm oil a major global driver of human induced climate change. The production of palm oil is also responsible for widespread human rights violations as palm oil companies often forcefully remove Indigenous Peoples and rural communities from their lands.
Fighting Back-One Man's Effort in Indonesia
The rainforests of Indonesia are among the most biodiverse on the planet, containing 10 percent of the world's known plants, 12 percent of mammals, and 17 percent of all known bird species. The threat from deforestation is huge, as only half of the country's original forests remain, with an estimated 2 million acres lost every year.

Rudi Putra, a biologist who has been dismantling illegal palm oil plantations that are causing massive deforestation and threatening to wipe out the Sumatran rhino, orangutans, tigers, elephants and other endangered species, just won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for his efforts. He is protecting the Leuser Ecosystem in Aceh; it is the only place on Earth where tigers, elephants, rhinos and orangutans can be found living together in the wild.

Working with local communities and local police, Putra and his colleagues were able to enforce land protection laws and shut down illegal palm oil plantations. Watch this short video on Rudi Putra's story:

Despite this success, the local government in Aceh is now trying to legally open up more land to palm oil development.
Yes-Think Globally, Act Locally
Ultimately it is up to consumers to know what is in what they eat. As with sweatshop labor, there is a high price to pay for our modern goods. Urging companies to cut palm oil out of their supply chains is one solution. And supporting the Rudi Putra's of the world is another -which comes down to awareness of what is happening around the world, in our own communities and within our own families. There are fewer than 100 Sumatran rhinos left in the wild. Is it worth wiping them out for a processed food ingredient?
Take Action
Sign the petition to protect the Leuser Ecosystem as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And call on snack food companies such as General Mills and Nestle to only use sustainably sourced palm oil.

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Consumer knowledge on the destructiveness of palm oil production-found in everything from ice cream and crackers to detergents and cosmetics, is rising. Increased awareness is sorely needed, as more and more forests are cleared to make way for palm oil plantations. Palm oil is among the biggest thre...

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Palm Oil Plant Pictures. I want to show students some pictures of palm oil plantations so they can see where the forests used to be. I also want to show them aerial photos as well. Here is an example of one the pictures.

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This is another YouTube Video about how Palm oil negatively impacts the environment. However, this video also talks about how the harvesting of the palms might even involve child labor. This will probably hit home with the students in the classroom.

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Environmental groups are stepping up a crusade to make sure the food people eat is good for the planet. They are focused on palm oil, a common ingredient in a lot of processed food most people eat every day without knowing the cost to the environment.

Activists from around the country recently gathered at a secret location in San Francisco to train and strategize about how to get big snack food companies to crack down on environmental and human rights abuses in the palm oil industry. The meeting was put on by the Rainforest Action Network. Activists practiced staging non-violent events to spread awareness about industry practices.

Palm oil is the most widely used vegetable oil in the world. Demand is so great that millions of acres of rainforest are being burned or cut down to make room for palm plantations, primarily in Indonesia and Malaysia. The burning creates massive carbon emissions and it is driving endangered rhinos, orangutans and other animals out of some of their last remaining habitat.

"When I heard about what was happening to orangutans in the wild, it really hit me very close to home," said Boston activist Lindsay Vanderhoogt. She said she came all the way to the Bay Area to learn how to help.

"It's not that the people don't care, it's just that they don't know what's going on," said Becky Chung of Orange County.

Palm oil is in about half of all packaged products in grocery stores. That includes many cookies, chocolates, peanut butter, soap, and lotions, even lip stick. Sometimes palm oil is clearly labeled, but it can be listed under dozens of different names.

Some palm oil is grown responsibly, but a lot is not. In addition to environmental damage, the industry is responsible for human rights abuses. The U.S. Labor Department reports some palm oil coming from Indonesia and Malaysia is produced by child labor or forced labor.

Activists fighting abuses in those countries face extreme danger. ABC7 News spoke with one activist visiting the Bay Area from Indonesia. He asked that he not be identified. He is particularly concerned about threats to the highly prized Leuser Ecosystem, a protected area of rainforest on the island of Sumatra. The man said palm oil "is good only for companies, not people." He says workers are often badly paid and poorly treated and a lot of land is being stolen from indigenous people.

It's almost impossible for American shoppers to figure out all the products that contain palm oil and whether it was grown responsibly. The Rainforest Action Network has just released a scorecard and interactive website, grading the twenty biggest snack food companies.

"The good news is that half of these global brands have come out and made public commitments to eliminate conflict-palm oil from their supply chains," said Laurel Sutherlin of the Rainforest Action Network.

No companies got the highest rating, but some were named front runners for making significant progress to make sure palm oil is grown responsibly.

Rainforest Action Network also called out companies it says are not doing enough. The group has specifically targeted PepsiCo, which uses 450,000 tons of palm oil a year, sold under a lot of different brand names.

According to Sutherlin, PepsiCo "so far has refused to pass a policy that covers its entire global supply chain. So that means popular products like Doritos and Lays that are sold all around the world are not often covered by the commitment to use truly responsible palm oil."

PepsiCo is one of many large corporations phasing in palm oil that is certified by an organization called the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. But many environmental groups say that certification is too weak, still allows for the clearing of some rainforests, and has a poor track record on human rights.

PepsiCo responded with the following statement:
While the Rainforest Action Network has been critical of PepsiCo and our robust sustainable palm oil plan, this year, the Union of Concerned Scientists, an ally of the RAN, gave PepsiCo an 80 on their palm oil scorecard, which in their ranking equates to having strong palm oil commitments. We have met our stated commitment to exclusively purchase 100 percent certified sustainable palm oil for our products by this year and we are starting to source 100 percent physical RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) certified palm oil in a couple of markets.

After checking with the Union of Concerned Scientists, they sent a statement of their own to ABC7 News:
PepsiCo talks a good game, but the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is skeptical about PepsiCo's ability to follow through on its commitment. The UCS scorecard is based on commitments to buying only deforestation-free palm oil, which is just one issue associated with palm oil production. Just because we gave the company a passing grade does not give PepsiCo a free pass on human rights, health, or other environmental issues. This is akin to getting a B- in English, but failing math, science and geography. One passing grade does not make a star student.

Written and produced by Jennifer Olney

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Popular snack foods may cause rainforest destruction

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Environmental groups are stepping up a crusade to make sure the food people eat is good for the planet. They are focused on palm oil, a common ingredient in a lot of processed food most people eat every day without knowing the cost to the environment.

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This is a National Geographic article about how the deforestation in Malaysia. The deforestation has possibly cost the lives of many tigers that are predators to the wild pigs on the island. With the lack of predators, the wild pigs are not become over populated.

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Deep in a rainforest on the Malaysian mainland, there was a longstanding mystery to solve. Since the late 1980s, scientists working in the Pasoh Research Forest, a 1,500-acre chunk of virgin forest connected to a vast protected reserve, have noticed that the understory was disappearing. Over time, the researchers found they could walk with increasing ease through the jungle, without having to bushwhack through a tangle of seedlings and saplings. The trend was worrisome, since those young trees represent the future forest canopy.

There was an obvious culprit: wild boars. They snap off saplings to use for nests, they trample seedlings, and they churn up the soil. But why was the forest teeming with pigs? Could a decline in predators like tige rs be responsible?

Matthew Luskin was skeptical. He had spent months traipsing through the forests of nearby Sumatra to study tigers for his PhD. He knew that if a lack of predators was the problem, there should also be an excess of other prey species, like deer and tapir. There wasn't.

In a study published this week in Nature Communication, Luskin and his colleagues suggest another explanation: palm oil.

A ubiquitous ingredient in all sorts of supermarket products, from cookies to cosmetics, palm oil is a booming business-and an environmental disaster. Land clearing to make way for palm plantations has been the direct cause of a massive loss of forest across Indonesia and Malaysia.

What Luskin's team has found is that those plantations can also damage even the seemingly healthy forest around them. The reason out-of-control boars are destroying the understory in the Pasoh Forest, the researchers say, isn't a dearth of tigers. It's a plethora of nearby palms.

Normally in southeast Asia's forests, trees produce fruit only every few years, and animal populations rise and fall with that food supply. In most years, there's very little fruit to eat, which keeps animal densities low.

The Pasoh Forest, however, is surrounded on three sides by oil palm plantations. Oil palm trees are the most productive fruit trees in the world-that's why they're so commercially important-and they fruit continuously for roughly 25 years. Luskin suspected that the wild pigs of Pasoh were commuting to the plantations to consume fallen fruit, then returning to the forest to wreak ecological havoc.

The crop cycle for oil palm-combined with copious data on tree growth, boar nests, and oil palm production collected by scientists working at Pasoh-provided a perfect natural experiment to test the hypothesis. After 25 years, oil palm trees begin to decline, so growers must rip up their plantations and start again. In the early 2000s, the growers around Pasoh cleared all their trees and replaced them.

All of a sudden there was no oil palm fruit-and though conditions hadn't changed in Pasoh itself, the boar population crashed. In a 125-acre area of the forest, the number of boar nests plummeted, from more than 300 before the palms were cleared to just one nest a few years later. When the new oil palms started fruiting, the boars came back with the same speed: within a few years there were hundreds of nests again.

Wild boar are highly destructive in large numbers in part because they rip out thousands of trees and churn up the soil, but also because they eat anything on the forest floor-a seed, an egg, a lizard. They can also reproduce faster than any large animal in the world, with females giving birth to two litters of 9 to 12 piglets each per year. Previous research showed that during peak population years, boars can damage more than half of all the saplings in an area.

But Luskin, a research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (and also a National Geographic Society grantee), believes macaques may ultimately prove just as problematic. The monkeys' numbers are also skyrocketing near oil palm plantations, and like the pigs they will eat anything available, from fruit to chicks to frogs. "No one has studied those effects yet," Luskin says.

Bigger Patches Are Better

Ecologists have a name for this kind of phenomenon, he and his colleagues write: When animals that are benefitting from agriculture "extend the ecological impacts of cultivation into food webs far away, in seemingly unaltered areas," it's called a "subsidy cascade."

What surprised the scientists, though, was how far this particular subsidy cascaded. All the study sites at Pasoh were deep inside the forest, at least .8 mile from the forest edge and the oil palms.

Oil palm plantations sometimes set aside patches of forest in order to be certified as "sustainable" by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. These areas of "high-conservation value" forest are often small patches in a sea of palm. Luskin, who visited dozens of such forest patches in Sumatra, refers to them as "pig and macaque zoos." He thinks they may be inadequate.

"A solution has been to keep these patches of forest as oases for nature," he says. "But that strategy might not work over the long term because of these invisible processes that are happening and are slowly eroding the forest."

To keep forest ecosystems from being unraveled by plagues of palm-fed pigs and monkeys, he goes on, we may need to set aside swaths that are "much larger than we thought before. This paper indicates that we really need to up the size of our forest reserves if we want to have them long-term."
Follow Hillary Rosner on Twitter.

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Hordes of Wild Pigs Make Palm Oil Even More Destructive

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Deep in a rainforest on the Malaysian mainland, there was a longstanding mystery to solve. Since the late 1980s, scientists working in the Pasoh Research Forest, a 1,500-acre chunk of virgin forest connected to a vast protected reserve, have noticed that the understory was disappearing.

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This website talks about how the notebook paper we use impacts the environment. It discusses the many items that are made from paper. It also details the many ways that the environment is harmed during the production of these items. These harmful effects include such as the negative impacts on forests, waterways, and climate are discussed.

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Take a moment and look around you. You'll see that there are a lot of things made out of paper. Paper is used for various purposes in our everyday lives. We use paper for storing information, printing books, newspapers, and magazines. Students buy books and notebooks in order to attend their classes. Each year, more than 2 billion books, 350 million magazines, and 24 billion newspapers are published ( Frequent Questions | Paper Recycling | US EPA). We also use paper in our kitchen, bathroom, cars, and as packaging materials. According to the recyclopedia data, each person uses about 749 pounds of paper each year in the United States.

The per capita paper consumption in the United States is more than any country in the world. We use paper for more purposes and in many different forms, than meets the eye. Paper comes in forms of tissue paper, paper towels, toilet paper, cardboard, packaging boxes, inserts in your shoes, and much more.

To make paper, we cut down 4 billion trees around the world each year, which accounts for 35% of the total trees cut around the world ( Paper Chase | Ecology Global NetworkEcology Global Network).

The paper industry and global impacts

Although paper is never blamed for climatic changes or global warming, paper impacts the globe at every stage in its lifecycle. In fact, paper is the third or fourth largest source of industrial greenhouse gas emissions in most developed countries. The impacts of paper throughout its lifecycle are given below.

Sourcing Impacts

More than 20 million trees are consumed for printing books, and about 95 million trees are consumed for newspapers, every year.

Over 40% of the total global industrial wood harvest is used to make paper.

Deforestation is the source of 25% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

Paper accounts for more than half of all recyclables collected in the US, by weight. About 44 million tons of paper and paperboard were recovered in 2012-a recycling rate of about 65% (Municipal Solid Waste in the United States: 2012 Facts and Figures).

Production Impacts

The paper industry is responsible for 9% of the total emissions of carbon dioxide from manufacturing industries.

The paper and pulp industry is the 4th largest emitter of greenhouse gases among U.S. manufacturing industries.

Disposal Impacts

Paper makes up 26% of landfills. Degradation produces methane, a greenhouse gas with 23 times the heat trapping capacity of carbon dioxide.

Landfills are the source of 34% of methane released-the single largest source in the U.S.

(Source: The Green Press Initiative).

Impacts of the paper industry on forests

Although some paper comes from well managed forests, many of the trees for paper industries are sourced from illegal tree loggers who destroy forests with high conservation values. Some proposed new sites for pulp and wood plantations are also a threat to natural habitats and the world's natural biodiversity in many places. ( WWF)

Impact of the paper industry on climate

Paper industries emit greenhouse gases in the process of manufacturing paper and in the process of providing energy supply to paper plants. Greenhouse gases are mainly responsible for climatic changes and global warming. The disposal of paper also contributes to global warming. Paper emits harmful methane gas when it rots.

Impacts of the paper industry on water resources

Paper industries also pollute water resources of the world by discharging many pollutants into bodies of water. Toxic chemicals like chlorine, iodine, and sulfur dioxide, contribute to the damage of the aquatic eco-system. They also create water acidification and oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon cycle imbalances.

Alternatives to cutting down trees

This is alarming to know that a large number of trees are being cut down for the paper and pulp industries. At this rate of deforestation, the world will soon face severe consequences of losing trees. There will be loss in the ecological balance, increased rate of greenhouse gases, giving rise to severe global warming and climatic changes.

You'll be happy to know that several companies in the United States are trying to come up with alternatives to cutting down trees for making paper. There are also other options available to reduce dependence on paper based printed media.

Recycled paper

Paper makes up 27 percent of municipal solid waste ( EPA: Paper Recycling). Recycling paper and making paper from recycled materials and recycling more paper could be a common solution for saving trees and environmental impacts on the globe. Using paper made from "Post-consumer waste" or recycled paper will reduce the number of trees being cut down and used for paper. It will also save landfill space and save energy. It takes 60% less energy to produce paper from recycled materials and post-consumer waste, than to make paper from scratch, using virgin materials ( EarthShare: Paper alternatives). And of course this also means that no new trees are necessary for production.

Hemp

Hemp could be another alternative to cutting down trees. It grows faster and produces twice as much fiber per acre than trees. Because hemp is the same species of plant as the common street drug, marijuana, legality of hemp varies widely from state to state. Many of the states in the United States have strict regulations and restrictions about growing it.

Electronic media and paper

Electronic media and computers can be our new found ray of hope of the 21 st century. Companies are shifting towards computer technology more because the number of computers and other forms of electronic devices with connectivity to the internet is growing every day.

Many of the utility companies are switching to electronic billing and electronic mailing systems instead of traditional paper mail billing, to save trees. Imagine the large volume of junk mail and flyers that come in your mail every day. When you get junk mail, it's like cutting down trees and throwing them in the landfill. Every person in your neighborhood gets junk mail, and it wastes paper, and also energy in mail delivery.

With the boom in the computer industry and digital media, more and more people are reducing their dependency on printed media. Marketers have also found that email is a greener and more efficient choice, allowing them to save 60 to 80 percent by switching to email-based marketing strategies ( Email Insider).

Computers and electronic media have also made it possible to publish books, newspapers, online magazines, catalogs, and other forms of information, without using paper. The Internet does what the printing industry does for books and newspapers, but it does it a lot faster, without wasting nearly as much energy and resources.

Although it would not be possible to stop manufacturing and using paper, we could surely try to minimize wasting paper, and try to use recycled paper, electronic forms, or alternative forms of media and file sharing systems to minimize global impacts associated with paper. Also sign up for as much paperless billing systems as possible.

Environmentalists around the world have already called for reduced paper consumption and are creating global awareness. Mass realization and awareness, and efforts from every individual, organization and government agency, are necessary. When it comes to global awareness, every one of us counts.

We'll be posting more blogs on how you can reduce wastage and use of paper, and how you can reduce junk mails, in our later blogs, so please keeps reading our blogs. We'll be back with another blog, until them, stay well, and don't forget to spread the message about saving paper and the environment.
P.S: Please put down your own thoughts about this topic. Thanks for reading our blogs. Source: Environmental Professionals Network

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The Environmental Impacts of Using Paper

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Take a moment and look around you. You'll see that there are a lot of things made out of paper. Paper is used for various purposes in our everyday lives. We use paper for storing information, printing books, newspapers, and magazines. Students buy books and notebooks in order to attend their classes.

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This video shows students how paper is made. The video talks about how millions of gallons of water is used every day in the production of the paper. The video states that the water is only returned to the rivers once it has been filtered and purified. I wish the video showed that process, as well.

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This website contains a helpful interactive map. When the computer mouse hovers over the hues of blue on the map, facts are displayed about how paper is made in that country, and any harmful effects on the environment that are occurring. For example, when hovering over Russian, the reader learns that illegal logging and old mill practices are such two of four negative impacts that the paper mills are having on the environment.

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Continued increase in paper consumption has led to more mill capacity, the global expansion of intensively managed tree plantations and increased wood harvest from forests.

Forestry for paper production can be part of a green economy, when done right, but carries huge ecological and social costs when done wrong.

Interactive map

For regional info move the cursor over the map - for case studies click on the dark blue areas.

Map legend

Dark blue: Expansion regions for pulp and paper production - including case studies illustrating potential impact

Middle blue: Expansion regions for pulp and paper production

Light blue: Region with mainly existing pulp and paper production

Unbenanntes Dokument

This webpage has been produced with the assistance of the European Union. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of WWF International and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.

Save Paper!

The Save Paper! section of the WWF website is a detailed guide that allows businesses and individuals to save paper and reduce its environmental impacts.

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Social and environmental impacts of paper production

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Continued increase in paper consumption has led to more mill capacity, the global expansion of intensively managed tree plantations and increased wood harvest from forests. Forestry for paper production can be part of a green economy, when done right, but carries huge ecological and social costs when done wrong.

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This picture and the web address listed demonstrate a terrible impact that paper production is having in China. China is one of the world’s leading producers of paper, but their poor use of the natural resources to make the paper will leave more than a bad taste in your mouth. Scientists have examined hair samples of people who live along the Yangtze River and the results are very disturbing
http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/about_freshwater/freshwater_problems/river_decline/10_rivers_risk/yangtze/yangtze_threats/

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I want students to also see that some companies are making good choices. Pepperidge Farm, which is part of the Campbell's Soup Company is one such company. 

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I want students to also see that some companies are making good choices. Pepperidge Farm, which is part of the Campbell's Soup Company is one such company. 

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Ingredient in Goldfish Empowers Women in Latin America

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Frutarom Natural Solutions BU, a global flavor and fine ingredient company, is offering local woman farmers in Latin America a protected income and flexible collaboration to warrant a safe, maintainable, and consistent supply of natural annatto coloring.

Frutarom Natural Solutions BU is showing gratitude for their workers by reimbursing them for their dedicated work in harvesting and supplying natural annatto coloring.

Danielle Nienberg, president of FoodTank states in a press release, "Women are playing a big role in changing the food system to create a well-nourished world. They are taking on larger and more defined roles in food and agriculture, globally." According to the U.N Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Bank, around 43% of women represent the world's largest labor force.

In countries such as Peru, Guatemala, and Brazil, women are known to be the keepers of the house, meaning they maintain the house duties. Maintaining the household is causing women to lack self-identity. Because of the growing demand of natural annatto coloring, Frutarom has begun their collaboration with a local agriculture partner to encourage local women, like in Latin America, to become self-regulated farmers and to grow annatto in their own fields.

Frutarom is committed and supportive to the local farmers and will make sure that the local farmers from the mother plantation obtain education and training that includes technical support and how to grow and harvest high quality annatto.

According to Natural Solutions, "The outcome of this collaboration is providing a safe, stable income to the growers, working directly with local farmers."

Yoni Glickman, president of Frutarom Natural Solutions Annatto says, "Global food and beverage companies are shifting quickly from Yellow 5 and 6 artificial colors to natural annatto in a wide range of food applications." Annatto is a seed or extract from the Achiote tree and is an orange-red dye that is often used to impart a yellow or orange color to foods. Glickman explains "Frutarom's advanced extraction of the seeds also enables recovery of high-antioxidant vitamin E while significantly minimizing fruit waste. Suppliers of natural colors are in a race to provide sufficient supplies of natural annatto coloring."

Frutarom is giving their support by generating practical partnerships in Latin America by working closely with farmers. The firm wants to help the local farmers expand their business by offering technical and business support.

Because of the two production sites, one in Lima, Peru, and the other in Murica, Spain, Frutarom is able to have a supply chain that fulfills the high demand of annatto color. "This 'win-win' situation for Frutarom and the farmers fills the gap in supply to meet the growing demand for natural annatto coloring and allows transparency with our customers worldwide," states Glickman. "We ensure safe, high-quality, all-natural color supply while supporting local communities in developing countries."

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Empowering Women in Latin America Through Harvesting Annatto

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Frutarom Natural Solutions BU, a global flavor and fine ingredient company, is offering local woman farmers in Latin America a protected income and flexible collaboration to warrant a safe, maintainable, and consistent supply of natural annatto coloring. Frutarom Natural Solutions BU is showing gratitude for their workers by reimbursing them for their dedicated work in harvesting and supplying natural annatto coloring.

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Pepperidge farms switches to natural dyes.

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While the F.D.A's two-day hearing on petroleum-based artificial colors continues today, know that American companies offer different products to American and European consumers.

In the United States, for example, M&M's and Skittles (Mars, Inc.), Nutri-Grain Cereal Bars (Kellogg's) and strawberry sundaes at McDonald's contain artificial dyes, while the same products in Europe are colored with plant-based extracts.

In the European Union, warning labels are required for foods containing any of six artificial colors. Because of Europe's heightened awareness of synthetic dyes, a warning label is tantamount to limited sales. Thus, extracts from real foods such as beets, paprika and turmeric are used to color.

But not all American companies are so stuck in their hometown mud. Pepperidge Farm, which, for seven years, had used artificial colorants in its colored goldfish, switched to natural dyes in July 2010.

The colored goldfish are now brightened with annatto extract, beet juice concentrate, paprika extract, paprika, turmeric extract, huito juice concentrate and watermelon juice concentrate, instead of blue 2, red 40, red 3 and blue 1. (There is a banner on the new bags with "Colors From Natural Ingredients" written.)

While it may seem that the large corporations exert iron-fisted control, know that public sentiment and purchasing power-and their role in the bottom line-shouldn't be taken for granted. Don't like a product? Make a phone call (or six).
Pepperidge Farm, September 2008: "We used to use natural colorings, but we couldn't achieve the vibrant colors that consumers wanted, so we had to go the other way. Consumer preference was for a brighter, broader range of colors."
Pepperidge Farm, March 2011: "There were so many consumers who had children that had problems with artificial colorings that we decided to change to the natural colorants."

Interestingly, Pepperidge Farm cited customer preference for its recent switch, the same reason it gave me in September 2008 for employing artificial colors in 2003.

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Pepperidge Farm Ousts Artificial Colors from Colored Goldfish

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While the F.D.A's two-day hearing on petroleum-based artificial colors continues today, know that American companies offer different products to American and European consumers. In the United States, for example, M&M's and Skittles (Mars, Inc.), Nutri-Grain Cereal Bars (Kellogg's) and strawberry sundaes at McDonald's contain artificial dyes, while the same products in Europe are colored with plant-based extracts.

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Students can view this map and see where graphite mines are located. I think it would be interesting for them to see that the United States is not one of the places marked on the map. This would cause them to look at the graphite in their pencil a lot differently.

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Map showing the major Graphite producing countries in world, major Graphite resources and their extraction from Ores. China, India and Brazi share almost 90% of world production.

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This weebly site has great information that would go great along with this lesson on pencils. It even includes a bibliography with other sources. It also has some great information about incense cedar as the type of wood preferred for pencils.

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The wooden lead pencil is one of the most simple yet intricate and carefully refined tools we as humans have at our disposal. Its unmatched ability to leave smooth, visible, erasable and varied...

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A resident of Wuhan, China, is shown here clearing dead fish from the Fu River. Tests of the river water have showed extremely high levels of ammonia downstream from a chemical plant.

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"Each time it was ordered to be corrected, but this demonstrates that enforcement is way too weak and the cost of violations way too low," Mr. Ma said.

People living along the river said they first noticed fish dying on Monday morning, and a sickening stench began to fill the air, China National Radio reported. About 110 tons of dead fish have been cleared from the river, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.

Environmental officials said the river was not used as a source of drinking water, and they urged residents not to panic. Spills in China have often set off runs on bottled water because of fears of contaminated supplies.

China's Ministry of Environmental Protection said water pollution was a serious concern, with industrial spills, farm runoff and untreated sewage all factors in degrading water quality. As of last year, nearly a third of the sections of major rivers it monitored were so degraded that the water was unfit for human contact, the ministry said in its annual State of Environmental Quality report, released in June.

The Fu River flows into the Yangtze, China's longest river and the source of drinking water for millions. Spills into the Yangtze and its tributaries remain a continuing problem despite huge investments in reducing pollution, Mr. Ma said.

"Even though it has a large volume of water, with 40 percent of China's wastewater dumped into this watershed we are concerned about the health of this river and the quality of its water," he said.

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Pollutants From Plant Killed Fish in China

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"Each time it was ordered to be corrected, but this demonstrates that enforcement is way too weak and the cost of violations way too low," Mr. Ma said. People living along the river said they first noticed fish dying on Monday morning, and a sickening stench began to fill the air, China National Radio reported.

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This is a wonderful list of read alouds that can be used during a elementary economics unit. This website has created lessons that can be used with the read alouds. For example, one lesson uses The Little Red Hen as a platform to discuss natural resources, producers, and consumers. https://www.econedlink.org/topics/27