How We Make Stuff is a recently released pop-up book, written by Christiane Dorion and illustrated by Beverley Young, that introduces young people to the ways we currently use the Earth’s natural resources as well as alternative approaches including biomimicry and cradle-to-cradle design concepts. In partnership with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation a companion website was also created to explore further how we can learn from living systems and rethink the way we design, make, and use our stuff.

The website is a great complement for a curriculum introducing for 7-12 year olds to concepts around manufacturing and sustainable design, and class activities are available for download.

We’re thrilled than an entire section of the How We Make Stuff website is dedicated to “What can we learn from other creatures?” and includes some great examples of how nature’s strategies have informed biomimetic design as well a short video featuring our own Janine Benyus. We also loved the “Get Loopy” video in which a mad professor (British comedian Steve Punt) questions whether the linear way we do things now makes sense and looks at how nature functions in loops and cycles instead. Video embed after the jump: