Web resources
Updated 20 Feb 2025
The following links were provided for parents and teachers to explore questions that might be asked by young readers. Note that many US government links have been eliminated or compromised as a result of US political churn.
Watching treasures
US Energy Information Administration: Oil and petroleum products explained
National Geographic: Petroleum
Smithsonian: What are fossil fuels
Britannica; Do fossil fuels really come from fossils?
Brooklyn Botanic: Power plants—The origin of fossil fuels
Who's Whoo?
Treehugger: Fifteen amazing owls facts
Poking dragons
Offshore Technology: The history of the oil and gas industry from 347 AD to today
EKT Interactive: History of oil
Wikipedia: History of the petroleum industry
Oil, whales and horses
San Joaquin Valley Geology: How the oil industry saved the whales
University of Houston: Of lamps and whales
Petroleum Service Company: Understanding the whale oil myth and the rise of petroleum
jSTOR Daily: Why we still use "horsepower"
Vintage Machinery: A brief history of the internal combustion engine
Autoweek: What was the very first car company?
Driving everywhere
Popular Mechanics: The original Futurama: The legacy of the 1939 World's Fair
Senses Atlas: Futurama, the prototype of the American highway-city
Wired: 1939's 'World of Tomorrow' shaped our today (paywall)
Architecture here and there: General Motors' America
Wikipedia: Braess's paradox (more roads can slow down traffic)
Steam engines go diesel
Henry Ford Org: Diesel-electric locomotives
Motortrend: How GM's diesel-electric locomotives changed the world
People fly like dragons
Federal Aviation Administration: A brief history of the FAA
Party at sea
Encyclopedia.com: Shipping, technological change
CNN: Why modern ships are looking to wind power
Time: The cruise industry is on a course for climate disaster
NPR: New technology uses good old-fashioned wind to power giant cargo vessels
Audrey's discoveries
CAPP Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers: Petroleum in real life
Orion Magazine: Medicine after oil
Plastic everything
Live Science: How do we turn oil into plastic?
University of Copenhagen: Researchers invent one hundred percent biodegradable barley plastic
Making money
Science Direct: Who profits from windfalls in oil tax revenue?
Whoo knows
EPA US Environmental Protection Agency: Causes of climate change.
Forest fiasco
NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: Wildfire climate connection
Union of concerned scientists: The fossil fuels behind forest fires
Surf's way up
NOAA: Climate change — Global sea level
Sticky situations
NOAA Office of Response and Restoration: Education quick links
Bees and slime
EPA: Protecting bee and other pollinators from pesticides
Talking trash
EPA: Facts and figures about materials, waste and recycling
Forbes: Turning trash Into treasure: How AI is revolutionizing waste sorting
Thinking differently
NRDC: Renewable Energy — the clean facts
Change is possible
EPA: Learn about green vehicles
EPA: Help make transportation greener
EPA: Why we need to decarbonize transportation
Future dreams
SourceGreen: Mushroom packaging? Why mycelium is the greenest alternative for styrofoam
YouTube: Daniel Sheehan, Harvard UFO lawyer on what the government has really been hiding
Frontiers: Walkability and its relationships with health, sustainability and livability
ABC News: How passenger electric planes could become a reality within the next decade
Pembina Institute: Calgary's wind-powered LRT an incredibly successful system
Interesting Engineering: Swiss hydrogen-powered train sets 1741-mile record for nonstop travel
Petrofac: The difference between green hydrogen and blue hydrogen
The mighty three
Solar schools: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Saving the earth
Education Development Center: Toward a youth-inclusive green economy
Indeed: Ten sustainability careers that can make a difference
