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Teaching Strategies

Earth Day: Lesson Plans, Reading Lists, and Classroom Ideas

Resources from around the web for incorporating Earth Day into your class.

April 16, 2013 Updated March 28, 2017

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Earth Day is right around the corner. Many educators are preparing lessons that introduce environmental science concepts for students. Are you planning on incorporating Earth Day into your classroom?

The annual event—which started in 1970—provides students with an opportunity to explore a range of subjects, whether science-based investigations, thematic reading, or creative arts projects. To help teachers brainstorm some ways to incorporate Earth Day into the curriculum, we’ve compiled a list of resources that offer lessons, ideas, tips, and activities that are perfect for Earth Day. There’s a bit of everything, including lesson plans, tools, resources, and student reading lists.

Earth Day Lesson Plans

  • : The AMNH Curriculum Collections section provides a great starting point for exploring many different natural science subjects. From Antarctica to river ecology, there’s a collection that can be used in almost any classroom.
  • : This rich collection of video lesson plans, created by the Nature Conservancy, serves as a great starting point for in-class examinations of ecology. There are science-based lessons with accompanying videos, virtual field trip videos, and Meet the Scientist videos. Plus, with spring nearly here, the site also features some wonderful gardening activities for students of all ages.
  • : This EDN-produced environmental education program features interdisciplinary lessons, classroom activities, and tools that will help you and your students explore environmental issues during class.
  • : The Environmental Protection Agency’s Earth Day website provides great ideas, lesson plans, and tips for Earth Day learning. Check out , which cover a range of earth sciences topics, including air, ecosystems, climate change, water, and more. All the featured lessons are available for download, and there are resources for every grade.
  • : This collection was produced for last year’s Earth Day, but is still relevant this year. Science NetLinks produced a big list of lessons and learning tools on a variety of earth science subjects, and they’re all easy to browse by grade level, subject, and type of project.

Earth Day Activities

  • : Want to help students learn the history of Earth Day? Start here. This activity from the National Geographic Society offers students in grades 3–11 an opportunity to read and discuss Earth Day in the classroom. The organization’s lessons and activities also offer some great ideas for incorporating Earth Day into lessons.
  • : This roundup of PBS LearningMedia resources is extremely useful for teachers. You’ll also want to check out PBS LearningMedia’s lesson plans, which are standards-based resources that examine earth sciences. The is another great teaching tool.
  • : The website I Want to Be Recycled is a one-stop shop for students interested in the science of recycling. Produced by nonprofit Keep America Beautiful, the resource features accessible information about recyclable materials, a Recycling 101 course, and information students can use to get involved. A fun place to start: the web-based game .

Earth Day Reading For Students

  • : Looking for a good book to learn about the environment? You’ll find plenty to choose from in this list from Project Learning Tree. Although it was produced in 2014, the books are timeless and informative, and they’re grouped by grade level.
  • : Book Culture’s list features great titles for students in grades K–8.

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