Foote Was First!: How One Curious Woman Connected Carbon Dioxide and Climate Change

Gr 2-5–While climate change and global warming are discussed and understood by scientists now, when was that connection uncovered? While it is credited to John Tyndall in 1861, Eunice Newton Foote, a true scientific pioneer, was the first person to make that scientific discovery, in 1858. The artwork is gorgeously soft and tinged with yellow and green hues that set this story in the 1800s at a laboratory dedicated to discovering the connection between carbon dioxide and how it traps the sun’s heat in our atmosphere. Foote’s story begins with her general curiosity and continues all the way to her schooling, marriage, and family life, then to her major scientific discovery. The book acknowledges that there is no complete record or evidence of Tyndall ever reading Foote’s work but does speculate that as a woman and an American, Foote and her accomplishments were not widely lauded. The book ends on a hopeful note about climate change and women in science. Among the back matter is a time line, a glossary, and a bibliography.