Help students understand their impact with these 12 ways to celebrate Earth Day!
Although Earth Day is a specific holiday celebrated in April, you can truly celebrate Earth Day all month long with these 12 ideas for activities, lessons, and projects.
#1 | Earth Day Close Reads
In this Close Reads with Mystery Picture resource, we learn more about Earth Day and the small changes we can make each day to help the Earth stay strong.
The combination of fiction and non-fiction passages provides a nice variety and allows students to practice different reading skills as they learn more about Earth Day over the course of the week.
Optional: After working through the Earth Day close reads, encourage your students to come up with an extension activity to complete modeled from one of the reading passages.
#2 | Incorporate Earth Day Activities Throughout the Week
Using digital activities like this Earth Day Sticker-Style Google Form™ activity or this Earth Day Game Show activity can bring the Earth Day theme into station or center work.
The Sticker-Style activity can also be a great digital transition activity while you are preparing one of the other activities on this list!
The Earth Day Game Show is a fun game to play as a full class, or you can divide students into groups of 4-6 to complete the activity as a group. Of course, you can also use the Earth Day Game Show slides to do other activities in the class. Learn more about reusing and repurposing game show slides in this blog post!
#3 | Celebrate Earth Day with a School-Wide Initiative
Encourage students or your student council to brainstorm different activities the whole school could participate in. Leading a full-school initiative can be very powerful for students and help them understand how their ideas and action can impact others.
Here are a few ideas to help kickstart your brainstorming.
- plant a school garden
- waste reduction challenge
- litter clean up
- start a recycling program
#4 | Write Persuasive Letters
Teach students about reducing, reusing, and recycling by having them write a persuasive letter to their grownups at home with ways their families can better care for the Earth.
#5 | Grow a Plant
Either adopt classroom plants or grow some from seeds.
Growing plants is not overly difficult, but it does take a little prep. You’ll need plastic cups, soil, paper towels, and seeds. Many of these items can be donated by parents, and when you’re done, your students can either take their plants home or you can plant them somewhere around the school, so you can continue monitoring them throughout the rest of the school year.
#6| Learn About Composting
Spend some class time learning about composting and how students can compost at home. This could even be part of the letter students write to their parents.
This video is very helpful in beginning the classroom discussion around composting.
#7 | Make an Earth Day Craft
Use coffee filters, droppers, and blue and green food coloring to create a cool Earth-looking craft.
Pair these craft projects with a writing lesson like writing poetry, a fictional story, or a persuasive essay about the Earth.
#8| Go on a Digital ‘Field Trip’ with Google Earth
Use Google Earth to visit some of the most beautiful places on Earth. Explore places that students may never get the chance to go.
Build this into your lessons by comparing places using figurative language, doing the math to figure out how far away the different locations are, or simply playing around and enjoying all of Earth’s beauty.
#9 | Guest Speaker
Invite a guest speaker to speak about something about the Earth and the different ways students can help make the Earth healthier. Several organizations are available to help line up speakers, and many people are working to help the Earth in creative ways.
#10 |Show a documentary
There are a variety of documentaries about environmental issues, and sharing one of them with students can inspire many more creative ideas.
Following the documentary, ask students to brainstorm ways to take action to better care for our Earth.
If your class does decide to create a school-wide initiative (as described in #3 above), your students could even create their own video documenting the process.
#11 | Create Art
Celebrate Earth Day with an artistic mission.
Art projects are one of the many ways students can express themselves and their ideas. These can range from small pictures or large murals.
Consider creating a mural using butcher paper that can be displayed in your school hallway. The mural can be filled with ideas and images of everyone trying to take better care of the Earth.
#12 | Ideas to Take Home
Give students a variety of ideas for how they may celebrate Earth Day at home.
You can also turn this into a student project by encouraging students to create a newsletter or flier that you can send home.
Here are a few ideas of topics you can cover:
- Lower your carbon footprint by reducing the amount of trash you produce
- Reduce your use of paper by going paperless
- Turn off lights when they are not needed to save energy
Celebrate Earth Day in your classroom by incorporating some of these ideas and activities into your classroom lessons and projects. Many of the ideas on this list can be paired with classroom skills and objectives to create a learning environment that is conducive to learning about helping the Earth while also still hitting on important curricular skills.
