29 April 2009
The Magic Eco-School Bus
I loved the Magic School Bus books when I was younger — with Ms. Frizzle who’d shrink her whole class and go on educational adventures inside wacky places like the human body. Perhaps foretelling my future career path as an urban planner, I recall being particularly interested in “At the Waterworks” when they traveled through a municipal water system.
Apparently in 2007 the EPA teamed up with Scholastic (remember the Scholastic order forms in grade school?) to publish The Magic School Bus Cleaned Up. This latest adventure is a bit meta:
…the children and Ms. Frizzle explore the pollution emitted from their own diesel school bus and learn about how to reduce the emissions as they find themselves traveling through a diesel engine [emphasis added]. The children learn about idle reduction and ways the community can help reduce the health risks from diesel exhaust. At the end of the book, the “Magic School Bus” gets its own pollution control device, a diesel particulate-matter filter.
I bet the kiddies love it: “Mom, will you read me a story about diesel particulate-matter filters before bedtime? Please?”
Even though the book was published only a year and half ago, I think the plot would be a little different today. Instead of just installing a filter, they’d probably overhaul that sucker with a full conversion to vegetable oil.
