Earth Day Ideas and Activities

It’s Fun! – Earth Day is a great time to plan fun, educational, and action-oriented activities. Celebrating Earth Day on or around April 22 can be a great way for schools to showcase classroom environmental education, highlight efforts to “green” the school facility, or engage the whole school community in making a difference.

It’s Flexible – An Earth Day activity can be done in one class period, can take place over the course of a few class periods or a week, or can be a school-wide activity or fair. The best activities offer opportunities to both teach about an issue and make a tangible environmental impact. Even just taking your class outside is

a great way to honor the Earth: do math or spelling with chalk out on the blacktop.

Get Started! We’ve compiled a list of fun and meaningful ideas and links to get you started. But use your and your students’ creativity and dream up your own. Create an Earth Day Committee at your school with students, parents, and teachers to help plan the event. Ideas from our list include actions from each of the Four Pillars of a Green School:

• Strive to be Toxics Free: Make your own green cleaners
• Use Resources Sustainably: Organize a school-wide Swap Meet to reuse items, or a Walk & Bike to School Day
• Create Green & Healthy Schoolyards, Serve Healthy Food: Create a container garden, conduct an organic food taste test
• Teach, Learn, Engage: Create and distribute a petition to eliminate the use of plastic bags in your community

http://www.greenschools.net/article.php?id=160

http://www.wagreenschools.org/