Earth Day is held on the same day each year, April 22nd. This year’s theme is Planets vs. Plastics, which is chosen annually by EarthDay.org. With Earth Day being this upcoming Monday, it creates an ideal opportunity to introduce the Earth Day theme and continue students’ understanding of this theme throughout the week!

By connecting engaging lessons to Earth Day, it allows for important educational experiences where children learn about the environment, the importance of conservation and sustainability, and they begin to understand their role as active citizens. By zoning in on the theme for this year’s Earth Day, it can help focus your lesson planning to save time and have the greatest impact on your students.

Here are some ideas to promote Earth Day not only on April 22nd, but all week (or year) long!

• Browse earthday.org with your class to discover articles, fact sheets, or even learn about various initiatives developed to help the planet.
• Design a garden by having a brainstorming session about features in a garden. Provide parameters for how large the garden shall be, and then let your students’ creativity blossom on paper through their own personal garden design.
• Plastic pick-up challenge: have your students estimate how many pieces of plastic they can pick up around the campus or their neighborhood each day of the week. Tally the total collected each day and chart it on a graph. At the end of the week, review their plastic pick-up challenge totals!
• Watch ClassOrbit’s video Earth Day or Taking Care of Our Earth to get a deeper understanding of Earth Day and natural resources. Also, discover how reducing, reusing, and recycling benefit our environment, as well as how air and water pollution can hurt it.
• Build art using single-use plastic materials. Students can collect plastic items from their house, and as a group, design an art piece utilizing the materials they brought in.

These are just a few ways to tap into an annual event while honoring our Planet Earth. By focusing cross-curricular lessons around Earth Day, it can truly open the door of possibilities for how our students think critically about finding solutions to problems they can help solve.

Remember, Earth Day isn’t just on April 22. It’s every day. How will you celebrate Earth Day and help students make a difference year-round?