Our Environment: Everything You Need to Know

Originally published as Notre Environnement, this English language edition was created in consultation with Dr. Virginia Capmourteres from the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of Guelph. Easy-to-read chapters provide an overview of our environment’s five essential elements: water, air, soil, energy, and climate.

Each chapter opens with an introductory question, such as “Where Is the Earth’s Water?”; “What Is Air?”; “What Is Soil?”; “Where Does Energy Come From?”; and “What Are Earth’s Climate Zones?” The concise answers are conveyed in clearly written, short paragraphs or in bullet-form lists. After presenting a summary of the basic, elemental facts, the discussion moves to the threats facing oceans, air quality, soil quality, energy challenges, and effects of global warming. Some of the more difficult terminology or concepts, like “desertification”, “oxygenate”, and “vermiculture”, are bolded in the text and explained more fully in a glossary.

Yves Dumont’s stylized, digital illustrations are bright and energetic, showcasing adults, kids and animals playing and working outside. The visually interesting layouts offer unique perspectives and close-ups that supplement the text. There are labelled diagrams of the human body, underground cross-sections of soil layers, and an outline of the step-by-step purification process in a water filtration plant.

Sidebars shaped like magnifying glasses are scattered through the double-page spreads and highlight related statistics or intriguing research. Readers might not be aware that “In the middle of the North Pacific Ocean, there is an island twice the size of Texas made entirely of plastic. This huge whirlpool of waste, called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, contains an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic”, or that a “small watch battery can contaminate a piece of soil about the size of a bath towel for fifty years.”

The role that human activities have in contributing to our environmental challenges is considered throughout, along with a brief sampling of solutions that kids and everyone can do, like “Making sure your room is dust-free and hanging laundry outside to dry will also help keep the air clean.” The final chapter is entitled “The Future”, and it describes green actions being taken around the world, from urban forests being planted in Vancouver, British Columbia, to city buses running on biogas from food waste in a town in Sweden.

Our Environment: Everything You Need to Know is a solid introduction to a myriad of pressing topics. A list of selected sources in both French and English is included in back matter. The accessible design invites browsing and also makes this nonfiction book a useful classroom resource.