Smithsonian: Invention & Impact Series

This lively history of transportation follows our fascinating route from primitive technology like sandals to driverless cars and beyond!
 
Since humans first stood upright, we’ve been on the move. Need food? Water? Land? A place to live? Survival depends upon motion. For thousands of years, people have devised ways to move faster, farther, and more comfortably. Their inventions—shoes, skis, the rudder, the wheel, engines, rockets—have had an enormous impact on how and where human beings live and thrive.

When human beings get a move on, change happens:
– The wheel, probably first used in the Middle East around 6,000 years ago, meant building and trading supplies could be moved more easily—whole civilizations rolled out.
– The Vikings sailed far and wide because they used a keel on their longships.
– Horse-and-carriage gridlock gave rise to subways.
– The bicycle changed the world for women in terms of freedom and fashion.
– Drones and driverless cars are the future . . . coming sooner than we think.

Award-winning author HP Newquist explores the transportation inventions and technologies that have transformed the way we experience the world around us. It’s a fascinating journey!

The science and inventions that make us who we are . . . literally!

Did you know the first blood transfusions were between people and lambs? Or that the first prosthetic hand with a hook was created so a French soldier could hold the reins of his horse in battle? Or that scientists recently grew a nose? 

Invention & Impact, an exciting new series from PYRG-Smithsonian, introduces young readers to experiments, discoveries, and breakthroughs such as these, which have huge impacts on our world.  Designed with exciting  images from the Smithsonian’s vast collections, each highly visual book in the series starts with a big idea and then explores that concept through specific objects that give kids the micro and meta picture on how inventions and ideas connect over time.

The debut book in the series looks at one of the most complex systems on planet Earth: the human body. From artificial eyeballs to aspirin to 3-D printed body parts, The Human Body profiles the objects that scientists and tinkerers throughout history have invented (or cobbled together) to protect, repair, or improve our physical selves. And there are plenty of fascinating stories behind these objects!