The Story of Stuff has been around for while, in fact it’s now been watched more than four million times. For those that are not familiar with it, The Story of Stuff is a twenty minute video that examines the cycle of production and consumption that exists with most consumer goods. The video is centered around questions examining how consumer goods found at discount retailers are produced at a low cost. The video is embedded below the “applications for education” section.

Since I first watched The Story of Stuff last winter there have been some additions to the website including video annotations, multiple translations, fact sheets, and a glossary of terms.

Applications for Education
The Story of Stuff is a good video to start a lesson about economics and or the environmental impact of consumerism. One way to make the story more relevant to students would be to have students identify the products within your classroom that have usable shelf-life of one year, two years, or five years.