National Park Service
Reduce Our Carbon Footprint, Let’s Compost!
Roll up your sleeves and get a little dirty with this elementary and middle school compost lesson. All you need is a large plastic container, a couple old newspapers, some organic waste, and a few hundred worms and you're ready...
Curated OER
Writing and Autobiography
Are you working on an autobiographical or narrative writing unit? Bring this lesson plan to your class, as it takes young writers through the process of drafting and sequencing an autobiography. After observing and demonstrating steps of...
K12 Reader
Taking Care of Earth
Provide a brief introduction to ecology and conservation with a reading passage. Learners can read the text, answer the five related questions that are included on the page, and discuss the reading.
Curated OER
Water, Water Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink
Students identify the different stages in the water cycle. In this environmental science instructional activity, students research about different water pollutants in watershed. They describe ways to purify water.
Curated OER
Flowers and a Beautiful World: Earth Day (1st)
Young scholars consider caring for their environment. In this environmental stewardship activity, students read Miss Rumphius and discuss how sharing their time, talent, and treasure through volunteering makes the world better.
Curated OER
A Multi-Media Approach to Teaching The Grapes of Wrath
Integrate history, math, and art into a study of The Grapes of Wrath with a series of activities that ask learners to investigate the social, political, economic, and environmental factors at play during the 1930s. Designed to be used...
Curated OER
T-shirts for Change
Can school children change the world? With a social or environmental issue in mind, 5th graders use what they know about advertising media to make t-shirts that have something to say. They research the issue they'd like to focus on,...
Curated OER
Bottled Water Ban
Convenience, taste, portability ... what's not to love about bottled water? Apparently, a lot. Scholars analyze the four main arguments supporting and opposing the sale of bottled water. They explore the health, environmental, and...
Curated OER
Vanishing Environment: Exploring Changes in Landscape
To discover the impact of urbanization on the environment, learners compare landscape paintings from the past with contemporary photographs, create found poems from descriptions of artwork, design backyard or public garden spaces,...
National Library of Medicine
Your Environment, Your Health: Water Quality
How important is water quality where you live? The first module in a six-unit series includes four lessons on water quality. By applying the concept directly to the lives of pupils, they engage in meaningful learning. They read about...
Curated OER
Maya Lin - Artist, Architect, Environmentalist
Sixth graders explore the life of Maya Lin and analyze the impact of her architectural philosophy on her work. They trace the history of the Vietnam Memorial from its conception by Maya Lin, to the present day. A time line is created of...
Curated OER
Environmental Risk Management
Students are engaged in cooperative learning strategies and critical thinking activities to introduce topics of analysis, probability, assessment, and management as they apply to environmental risk. They choose a risk from the class...
Curated OER
Action, Please!
Students create an advertising campaign. In this environmental education lesson, students research aluminum and aluminum can recycling. Students wrap the lesson up by writing newspaper articles, creating public service announcements, and...
Curated OER
Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
Students explore the concept of waste management. For this environmental stewardship lesson, students study the nuances of the terms reduce, reuse, and recycle. Students investigate ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle many everyday items...
Curated OER
Disposing Garbage
Students explore environmental cleanliness by completing a worksheet in class. For this waste management lesson, students identify the technological advances in society and how they increase waste production our planet is unable to deal...
EngageNY
Tracing a Speaker’s Argument: John Stossel DDT Video
Which side are you on? Scholars watch a video of John Stossel discussing the use of DDT pesticide. Learners talk about the purpose of the video and the speaker's argument and then complete a Tracing an Argument graphic organizer while...
Michigan State University
Bug Lyphe!
Introduce ecology classes to biodiversity and interdependence in ecosystems with a PowerPoint presentation. Then, they get up-close and personal with the invertebrate world by collecting insects, classifying them, and graphing their...
Curated OER
Folklife Around the Year and Around the State
Research how seasonal changes in Louisiana affect learners' lives and the folklife of their communities and the state. They investigate differences in the seasonal round in the regions of Louisiana, including celebrations, festivals,...
Beyond Benign
The Green Zine
It's time for your class to advertise what they've learned! The culminating lesson in the 24-part series asks scholars to use their newfound chemistry knowledge to create advertisements. Their magazine advertisements describe the health...
Curated OER
Comparing Light Bulbs
An average home produces twice as many emissions as an average car. Teach your class how to reduce energy consumption by replacing standard incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs. Perform an experiment to compare...
Curated OER
Hoot: List-Group-Label
Word association is a great way to explore vocabulary and new ideas. In a unit about Carl Hiassen's Hoot, kids think about the word environmentalist and come up with additional words that they associate with environmentalism on...
Curated OER
Make Your Own Trashasaurus Rex Sculpture
Students explore environmental awareness through reusing materials. In this environmental awareness lesson, students use trash to create a "trashasaurus," a large dinosaur sculpture made from waste. Detailed structure and papier-mâché...
Curated OER
Create, Design, and Invent with Plastic
Learners explore creative ways to reuse materials. In this ecology/art lesson, students create artwork using trash. Learners view examples of folk art from around the world that used waste products as a main component.
Curated OER
Itaipu Dam and Power Plant (Brazil and Paraguay)
Learners study South America's Itaipu Dam and Power Plant in order to gain an understanding that hydroelectric power is a major means of generating electricity throughout the world. They also look into the environmental impacts that...