The Sustainable School: A Journey Through Time and Energy

Written by Erica Fyvie

Illustrated by Scot Ritchie

Kids Can Press

978-1-5253-0668-6

56 pp.

Ages 8–12

September 2025 

 

As the Grade 6 Eco Club presents their project to conduct an energy audit at the school, a buried time capsule outside the school mutters away, waiting to be discovered and realizing it hasn't had many opportunities to learn. As the kids discuss the upcoming improvements to make the school more energy efficient including a rainwater collection system, a green roof, and solar panels, construction workers outside discover the time capsule—which seems to have its own thoughts as seen by its distinct speech bubbles—left by Class 6 from 1900. In the time capsule is a note from the teacher, Miss  Edna Sorman, who speaks of the impressive engineering of Birch Elementary Public School. So, with that note and the artifacts within, the kids of Class 6 of 2025 begin to see how things have changed over more than a century. 

From The Sustainable School: A Journey Through Time and Energy, written by Erica Fyvie, illustrated by Scot Ritchie

With their teacher dividing the class into 4 teams to tackle the issues of electricity, plumbing, building, and transportation, the Energy League is born. Through discussions and perusal of the time capsule's contents, the students think about the past, what their lives are like now, and then aim to apply what they've learned to predicting what things could be like in 2125, sparking plans for a Future Fair.

From The Sustainable School: A Journey Through Time and Energy, written by Erica Fyvie, illustrated by Scot Ritchie

Within the context of the discovery and the class's activities, young readers will learn about energy, kinetic energy, wastewater measures, retrofitting, and more. We get glimpses into the past when a hand-cranked ice-cream freezer was a luxury at $1.26, when innovations like electric light bulbs  and indoor plumbing were often seen as dangerous, and when the horse and buggy were the norm.  In addition to revealing much about where things were at around the turn of the century (the 20th century), author Erica Fyvie provides snippets about other time capsules, some accidental, some not, like the global seed vault, the Terracotta Warriors, the wreck of the Titanic, Voyager Golden Records, and Scott's hut in Antarctica, as well as reports about recycled building materials, food waste as a source of energy, and zero-fuel transportation.

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From The Sustainable School: A Journey Through Time and Energy, written by Erica Fyvie, illustrated by Scot Ritchie

The Sustainable School covers a lot of information, but it does so in an engaging format. The use of a graphic-novel style to embed history, inquiry-based learning and STEM concepts will interest middle-grade readers and their teachers and parents. It is a story that does not need to be read in one sitting—though it could be—and can be used as a fabulous launching off for a myriad of science lessons on environmentalism and energy but also studies of history, particularly how things have changed. With those query lessons (see above for part of one based on the question, "Can we build a new building with only recycled materials?"; p. 40), Erica Fyvie offers educators a different way of looking at inquiry. She encourages focusing on the past as a step in the evolution of our infrastructure systems and to project how things might just change in the future. And with the illustrations by Scot Ritchie, whose artwork has enhanced the text of many picture books and non-fiction books (e.g., All Our Love, Frederica, and If You Can Dream It, You Can Do It), The Sustainable School becomes a welcome information book for middle graders and their classrooms. I always remark on the lightness of Scot Ritchie's artwork, probably because of his rendering it in pencil and then ink before colouring in Photoshop but it lends itself well to keeping information text manageable and hardly imposing or dull. In fact, Scot Ritchie's characters, who show the wonderful diversity of many classes today, and the graphic-novel format create a milieu for engagement.

From The Sustainable School: A Journey Through Time and Energy, written by Erica Fyvie, illustrated by Scot Ritchie

I really hope that Erica Fyvie and Scot Ritchie can extend this style of non-fiction to other topics, perhaps One Health or education. It is very reminiscent of Linda Bailey and Bill Slavin's The Good Times Travel Agency in the blending of graphics with time perspective and information, and I believe Erica Fyvie and Scot Ritchie honour those who've first accomplished much in presenting non-fiction books in captivating and informative ways. After all, looking back isn't languishing there; it's informing the future.