Category: Environmental Issues

Earth Day Activities for Science

No matter what branch of science you're currently teaching, it's easy to incorporate Earth Day activities into your classroom. Don't let "I'm not in that unit right now" deter you from celebrating this important day! I've got Earth Day activities for every branch of science!

Air Pollution Activity

Whether you're teaching human impact on the environment, ecosystems, Earth's systems, climate change, or even chemistry, it's easy (and important) to add an air pollution activity to your curriculum. Air pollution has natural ties to so many aspects of science, health, and even social issues. Students should understand how air pollution affects them and their local and global communities in a multitude of ways. Over the years, I developed tried-and-true ways to teach air pollution in my science class.

Local Ecosystem Lessons

Picture this...  your students are having fun, learning and exploring, excited and engaged, and immersed in local ecosystem lessons. Where are you? You're sipping coffee and watching! The reins are in someone else's hands today! Every year, this is what I experience when the local watershed group comes into my class for a day. They have pre-made lessons, tons of hands-on activities, and they lead the lesson themselves. All I have to do is contact them and choose which lesson I'd like this year. You can do this, too!

Land Pollution Lesson Plan

As I was developing my land pollution lesson plan, I couldn't help but take a little trip down memory lane to the 1980s... I remember a lot of ads about not being a “litterbug”.  My generation got the message… littering is bad. While being a “litterbug” seems to have been cut down, garbage is still a huge issue on our little third rock from the sun. The amount of garbage humans generate is really out of control, and we are running out of ways to deal with it.

Water Pollution Activities

Kids can agree that dirty water is gross and littered water is not a rare sight. But there are many aspects to water pollution that go overlooked. Water pollution is not just about yucky, ugly water. It's about contaminated drinking water and microplastics exposing us to harmful chemicals. It's about thermal pollution from power plants and nutrient pollution from agriculture. If we're going to raise environmentally aware kids, water pollution lessons will require more than the "dirty water = bad, clean water = good" simplified approach.

A Human Impact Lesson

Teaching human impact on the environment can be challenging. It's hard not to be negative sometimes. But the best human impact lesson we could possibly deliver is HOPE. Without hope, what's the point? Kids need to know that something can be done. In the past, when I taught my "Human Impact on the Environment" unit, I always felt like I was teaching that doom and gloom is everywhere. And worse... it came across as kind of hopeless. I never felt quite right about this approach despite it all being true. So, a few years back, I decided to switch my "spin".