CURIOUS CAT:Hello, children. What are you doing?
BOY:We're making things out of paper.
GIRL:Look, I made a paper hat.
CURIOUS CAT:Wow, that's brilliant. Paper is really useful for lots of things. Drawing pictures, books to read, letters to write, and many other things. But have you ever wondered how paper is made?
GIRL:Doesn't it come from trees?
CURIOUS CAT:Yes, that's right. Paper has been around a long, long time. In fact, it's been around since the ancient Egyptians.
CURIOUS CAT:'Look at all these trees. That's where it all starts, in the forest. This is where paper comes from. Trees. There are young trees growing in amongst the old ones. If we kept cutting down all the trees, there wouldn't be any left. So, we have to plant new ones. Paper is made from the mix of all types of trees.
CURIOUS CAT:'The trees are cut down and the branches are cut off, and they're loaded onto a truck, where they go to the paper mill.'
CURIOUS CAT:So you see, the trees are where the paper's journey begins. Do you want to find out what happens to the logs at the paper mill?GIRL:Yes, please.
BOY:That would be brilliant.
CURIOUS CAT:Then off you go.
LIZ:Hello. My name is Liz and I work at the paper mill, and I'm going to tell you about how we make paper. This is called the woodyard. This is where we store all the logs that come in straight from the forest. They come in on lorries.
GIRL:How many trucks deliver logs here?
LIZ:There's about 40 lorries coming in per day.
GIRL:Where are the logs going now?
LIZ:The logs all go into a big drum called the debarker and it's like a great big washing machine, which tumbles all the logs together to take off their outer skin, the bark of the log. And then the logs come out of the other side and there's no bark on it.
BOY:Why does the bark have to come off of the logs?
LIZ:Bark has to come off of the logs because you don't want to open up your comic or your magazine and see bits of wood.
CURIOUS CAT:'Ah. The bark is removed as it does not make good quality paper.'
CURIOUS CAT:'These logs have had their bark removed, but they're still too big to make paper. So Liz is taking the children into the grinding room to show them what happens next.'
BOY:What happens in the grinder?
LIZ:What happens in the grinder, the logs that we saw getting debarked, they come in and they are pushed against this rotating stone, which is rotating very, very fast. The logs are pushed against it, which crushes the logs up into fibres.
CURIOUS CAT:'The grinding stones squeeze the logs so hard that it crushes them up into tiny pieces. These are called fibres. And then water is added.'
GIRL:Why is water added?
LIZ:We want it to look like a porridge-y mix to get the pulp. The pulp is what we need to go on to make the paper.
CURIOUS CAT:'And this is what the pulp looks like. Liz is going to show the children how to turn this into paper.'
LIZ:We're going to add the pulp in here. Now we're going to press this button here and that's going to mix up the water and the pulp. Can you hear it bubbling away? It's just mixing all the fibres and the water together. Okay. That's that done. So now what I'm going to do is gonna drain away the water so that only the fibre's going to be left.
LIZ:And there we go. You see all the fibres have all stuck together?
BOY:Yeah.
CURIOUS CAT:'Wow. It's now starting to look like paper.'
BOY:It's really wet.
BOY:Wow.
LIZ:It's quite a lot of water in it, yeah, isn't it? What we have to do is we have to put a piece of this dry paper on top of it to soak all the water out of it. What I'm going to do now is roll this roll this just to squeeze more of the water out. Peel this off. There we go.
BOY:It feels quite smooth and…
GIRL:It's not delicate now.
LIZ:And here's one that we dried off here a little, just to show you. There we go.
GIRL:It's impressive.
LIZ:Yeah.
BOY:I'm actually holding a tree.
CURIOUS CAT:'This way of making paper takes a long time. That's why we have this great, big paper-making machine.'
CURIOUS CAT:'What happens first is that the pulp is spread onto a wire mesh, and as it moves along, the water drains away.'
GIRL:Why do you have to get rid of the water?
LIZ:You have to get rid of the water so that the fibres are left on the wire mesh. So, all the water drains through the wire, which is like a big sieve, and only the fibres are left on top.
CURIOUS CAT:'Next, the pulp is pressed by really big rollers that squeeze the last drop of water out.'
LIZ:The last section's called the dryer section, which is a series of heated rollers which dries the paper out and keeps it flat.
BOY:How many rollers does the mash go through?
LIZ:At the dryer section, it goes through 41 cylinders, heated cylinders, which squeeze out all the water and dry out the paper.
CURIOUS CAT:'And finally, the dried paper is rolled up, ready to leave the factory.'
BOY:Oh, look, it's coming down now. Why is it doing that?
LIZ:This is loading it because it's gonna get sent to the warehouse, ready to be transported straight to the printers. Okay. You've seen all the paper process, from when the logs came in at the beginning. Okay. So, shall we go there up close and look at the finished paper?
BOY:Yeah.
LIZ:Okay. Here we are.
LIZ:So now we have paper. So can you believe that we've made that paper from the trees?
BOY:Whoa.
GIRL:Whoa.
BOY:That feels really soft.
GIRL:Oh.
BOY:Really amazing how you get a thin paper…
LIZ:It's quite strong as well, isn't it?
GIRL:I know.
BOY:Yeah, you can't really break it. It's amazing how it's so light it can actually fly.
GIRL:It's just so beautiful.
BOY:Yeah. I know.
CURIOUS CAT:Hello, children. How was your journey?
GIRL:It was incredible.
BOY:Look, we have paper made from trees.
CURIOUS CAT:That's great. So, what did you learn?
BOY:'First, the paper mill takes the bark off the trees in the debarking drum. It tumbles all the logs together and all the bark falls through a hole.'
GIRL:'And then they put the logs through the grinder, which mashes the logs up with humongous stones. Then they add lots of water to make pulp, which looks like horrible porridge.'
BOY:'To get the water out of the pulp, they're spread it onto a moving wire mesh where the water drains through the bottom.'
GIRL:'Then the wet paper can be dried. Then it actually gets turned into real paper, the one that you use for drawing. That is how paper is made from trees.'
CURIOUS CAT:That's really good work. Well done, children. Goodbye.
BOY:Goodbye, Curious Cat.
GIRL:Goodbye, Curious Cat.
CURIOUS CAT:Goodbye, children.
Video summary
The children see trees in a forest before visiting a paper mill.
They meet an expert who shows them the processes involved, including logs of wood: being delivered from the forest, having their bark removed and being crushed to make pulp.
In the lab, the children are shown how this pulp is turned into paper.
They see the huge machinery and watch as the finished rolls of paper leave the production line.
Later, they return to the classroom to tell Curious Cat what they have learnt.
This is from the series: Curious Cat
Teacher Notes
Students could make recycled paper using a similar method to the one shown in the clip.
First, tear up scrap paper into pieces and soak the pieces in hot water before placing them in a blender. Blend until the pieces become mush. Food colouring can be added at this stage for colour.
Add a few centimetres of water into a pan and put a screen into the pan, then pour one cup of the paper pulp onto the screen. Spread the pulp evenly in the water then lift the screen and let the water drain.
Once the pulp has dried it will be ready to use as paper.
The students could also design and run a campaign to conserve paper at home or in school to encourage paper recycling.
They could write persuasive letters encouraging their parents, neighbours or head teacher to back the campaign.
This clip will be relevant for teaching Science at KS1 and KS2 in England and Wales.
Also Foundation and KS1 in Northern Ireland and Early/1st/2nd levels in Scotland.
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