Nicolas-Jacques Conte, the inventor of the modern pencil, died in 1805.

The pencil has a wide variety of uses, but is best known for the fact that what is written with a pencil can usually be erased. The exact date of the invention of the first pencil is unknown, but it is believed to have been sometime in 1565, following the discovery of graphite near Borrowdale, England. From that point until the end of the 18th century, pencils were generally made by encasing in wood strips the pure graphite taken from the Borrowdale mine. However, in 1789, the French Revolution began, and France became cut off from the supply of English graphite.

In 1794, Nicolas-Jacques Conté was charged by his patron, Carnot, to invent a substitute for English graphite. In just eight days, he produced a workable "lead" by mixing clay with a lower quality graphite in powdered form. He baked it in such a way that he not only produced a usable "lead," but also was able to make "leads" in varying degrees of hardness. A similar mixture is still in use today, so Conté is credited with the invention of the modern pencil.

ReadWriteThink
In Pencil Pages: Getting to the Point When Researching Information (3–5), students examine the structure and organization of the Pencil Pages! Web site and compare it with the conventions of print text. Drawing upon prior knowledge, students predict whether eight statements about pencils are true or false. They use their understanding of online text conventions to verify their predictions.

Science NetLinks
Build a Better Pencil (K–2) helps students learn about planning, making, evaluating and modifying designs. Students use a variety of materials to create an improvement to the design of the pencil, taking into consideration constraints such as safety, time, cost, space and availability of materials.

EconEdLink
In The Write Stuff (3–5), students use a pencil as their focus to discover the three basic questions that must be answered in a market economy: What is produced? How it is produced? For whom is it produced? Students research the production and resources needed to create a pencil, as well as some of the history of the pencil.

Students learn about natural resources from different areas of the United States in Where did that pencil come from? The Study of Natural Resources (3–5). Choosing a specific state, students research which natural resources contribute to the production of a particular good and list the goods. They then discuss the process these goods go through from nature to consumer.