April 22 is Earth Day, a day designed to remind us all of the importance of recycling and reusing. Conservation is another big emphasis of earth day. Earth Day offers an opportunity for teachers to emphasize the environment, importance of recycling, and the students’ role in maintaining the earth.
The following free resources and lesson plans will help you quickly and easily plan for Earth Day.
Prepare yourself and your students with free printable facts and information about waste and recycling. The U.S. EPA has a glossary of terms associated with waste disposal and the environment, data sheets which show waste levels and the importance of recycling, projects for students to try at home, and important data about composting and recycling. All pages are printable and provide background information for teachers and reading information for high school students.
The Educator’s Reference Desk provides a free hands-on lesson plan that will help you teach 2nd and 3rd graders about pollution and recycling. The lesson plan includes facts, vocabulary, brainstorming activities, a landfill pollution experiment, an opportunity to separate recyclables, and journal entry prompts to write about what they have learned. This lesson can easily be expanded for upper elementary grades. Find the free lesson plan at The Educator’s Reference Desk.
In addition to the background information and reading resources, the U.S EPA agency has prepared free lesson plans and printables to help your students understand the importance of waste management and recycling. HAZ-ED is a downloadable PDF file complete with quick facts, activities, thought and discussion questions, a glossary of environmental terms, and more. The purpose of the EPA’s HAZ-ED program is to promote critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making while increasing environmental awareness.
SMILE, the Science and Mathematics Initiative for Learning Enhancement, has twenty-three different lesson plans appropriate for Earth Day. Lesson plans are contributed by a variety of authors and may differ in depth and quality. Lessons cover all aspects of environmental studies and ecology. Elementary teachers will find resources to use in teaching about water, soil, air, and pollution. Middle school and high school teachers will find resources addressing water and air pollution, trash and garbage, recycling, and run-off. Lessons offered on SMILE tend to be broader in scope than generalized Earth Day lesson plans.
Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection offers 8 lesson plans. Three lesson plans are adaptable for kindergarten through twelfth grade. Five of the free lesson plans are appropriate for middle school, junior high, and high school. Topics in these free lessons include waste, litter, classroom recycling, disposal and recycling costs, motor oil recycling, and packaging. A free printable survey may be printed and used by any grade to gather information on recycling. There is also a simple composting project. Carl Hursh, from the Bureau of Land Recycling and Waste Management prepared this variety of lesson plans for The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
Charles Hoskowicz developed a card game to teach elementary students about recycling. It is simple to make, and it is played like “Go Fish.” After about three rounds students will be able to identify items that are recyclable.
If you have computer lab, or would like to incorporate homework into your Earth Day instruction check out some of these online resources. These may serve as pre-Earth Day awareness activities or fun homework to follow-up on your Earth Day lessons:
Waste No Words – an online crossword puzzle.
Which Bin does it go in? – online recycling game
Quiz, Game, and Crossword Puzzle – prepared by the EPA
Recycle City – a place to explore recycling, reuse, and waste
Sources:
“Environmental Studies and Ecology,” SMILE
EPA.gov
“Pollution and Recycling,” The Educator’s Reference Desk
“Recycle”, EdWeb
Recycling Lesson Plans,” Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection
