Earth Day is the world’s largest environmental movement and is a wonderful day to focus on what we as individuals can do to make change. Here are some ideas to help you celebrate in your classroom.
Our theme here in Canada is Consume Less, Play More. We are encouraged to have an extra or more recess time on this special day. EarthPlay aims to:
bring outdoor, unstructured free play back into children’s lives across Canada – in schools, parks, streets and other public spaces – with the aim of supporting their connection to nature, as well as their health, well-being, ingenuity and social inclusion.
We can support this effort by celebrating Earth Day with extra unstructured play.
The focus of this year’s Earth Day for our neighbours to the south is: “Mobilize Your Students to Help to End Plastic Pollution!”. Earth day’s page, www.earthday.org has a great toolkit with activities broken down into K-5, 6-8 and 9-12. Links to videos, discussion topics, and activities provide a daily focus for Climate Education Week related to the 2018 theme of Ending Plastic Pollution. If a lesson each day for a week is too much, you can pick and choose what appeals to you and your students.
Rather than buying new craft materials, Earth Day is the perfect occasion to use all those inspiring recyclables. Here you can find 21 Earth Day Crafts and Classroom Activities Using Recycled Materials.
If your school is thinking about setting up a composting system or composting is in the curriculum, the See Through Compost Container enables students to see the decomposition process and make side-by-side comparisons between different materials. Included thermometers demonstrate temperature changes during the decomposition process.
Most importantly, do something on Earth Day to recognize how important our beautiful environment is. Use the hashtag #EarthDay2018 to share your fun and remember to
