What Poo Can Do
How Animals Are Fighting the Climate Crisis
by Yolanda Ridge
Orca Book Publishers, 2024
ISBN 978-1-4598-3541-2
$21.95, 48 pp, ages 11 – 14
orcabook.com
This timely book, illustrated with vibrant photographs and colourful graphics, is written in a conversational style that makes it easy to read aloud to primary students and provides essential information to a generation facing the reality of the climate crisis. Students will be intrigued and amused at the focus on poo, and how the excrement of blue whales in the ocean, wildebeests in the Serengeti, and the penguins of Antarctica work in fighting the climate crisis. The growth of phytoplankton nourished by whale poo as well as the carbon storage of their large bodies are just two ways that whales and other sea mammals help keep carbon dioxide volumes down. As wildebeests and other African animals migrate across the grasslands, nourishing plant growth and spreading seeds with their poo and creating firebreaks with their grazing tracks, they help this area of the world to absorb more greenhouse gas than is produced. Penguins, whose guano trails can be seen from space, are essential in nourishing the surrounding ecosystem. Dung beetles, which live in poo, aerate it by their actions and reduce the amount of methane released to the atmosphere. The book also offers numerous suggestions on how humans can fight the climate crisis. Suggestions such as reducing plastic waste, ensuring the survival of whales and penguins, reducing deforestation, and eating less beef are just some of the many ways that can help students feel involved in finding solutions to the problems of climate change.
Classroom Connections: This book suggests numerous ways to involve students in doing what they can do to fight climate change. Each chapter of this book has a section on How You Can Help and lists a number of manageable projects that students can undertake. The book can act as a springboard for a class field trip, doing things like cleaning up a beach, planting trees, and creating compost.
Review by Betty Schultze.
This review is featured in Canadian Teacher Magazine’s Spring 2025 issue.
