Promoting Earth Day at school can be as simple as encouraging students to wear an Earth Day t-shirt with a recycle logo on it, or as complex as initiating a school-wide composting project. Whatever a teacher may decide, it is important to acknowledge the day as an important one and encourage students to contribute in any way they can to the efforts of making the planet a greener one.
Earth Day Grocery Bag Project
Third grade teacher Mark Ahlness from Arbor Heights Elementary School in Seattle, Washington founded what is today known as the “Earth Day Grocery Bag Project”. This project is free to do and Internet-based, and involves classroom students collecting and decorating hundreds of grocery store bags with colorful Earth Day messages.
Local grocery stores need to be engaged in the project as well. Their role will be to donate the plain brown bags for students to decorate in class. Then, students and teachers are responsible for returning the completed bags to the grocery store for dispersal to customers.
An important factor in the success of this project is public awareness. Getting a local newspaper to spread the word in the community about the project is key so that grocery store visitors know to ask for the special bags at checkout.
Metal Recycling Project and Field Trip
Plan a field trip in advance to a local recycling facility. Before the special day, teachers should lay out a recycling lecture. A bulletin board showing the stages of metal recycling would be a great display for the lesson. Here are the steps that a teacher may want to show on the lesson board:
- Collect cans/metal at recycling plant
- Separate aluminum from steel using magnet
- Crush cans and metal
- Transport to mill
- Melt down
- Transform into new metal cans or other items
Once the metal recycling process has been demonstrated, teachers can then have students come up with a list of items that could be made from recycled metal.
On the day of the field trip, students should bring at least two cleaned metal cans to donate (give the children some notice on this requirement so they will have time to save up a couple from their own recycling collection at home). Before the trip, do a magnet experiment to determine which cans are aluminum and which cans are steel.
The MacGyver Challenge – Turning Trash to Treasure
Turn your classroom into a recycling factory in this creative Earth Day challenge. Have students bring in two recyclable items each (provide a list of possibilities): milk cartons, jugs, water bottles, used CDs, etc. On the day of the challenge, split students up into small groups and have them each make a design of what they want to construct. Then using the recyclables, have them build their masterpieces!
Other Earth Day Project Ideas
Here is a comprehensive list of other possible Earth Day activities for children. Each one is educational and worth the effort.
- Class play about recycling
- Visit a water purification plant
- Class composting project
- Abitibi Paper Recycling (school-wide effort to fundraise and recycle paper)
- Earth Day coloring sheets
- Read books about Earth Day
- Earth Day fact-finding (computer or library activity)
- Plant a class tree at school
- Spring cleanup project
- Litter hunt project
- Make an Earth-friendly grocery store list for mom and dad
- Create Earth Day puzzles, games, or word searches
- Rock painting for garden decorations
- Planting grass seeds in recyclable containers
- Nature walks and collections for artwork
- Nature treasure hunt
- Earth-friendly recipe book project
No matter how schools choose to commemorate Earth Day this year, it will most certainly raise awareness and help a new generation to understand the significance of taking care of the delicate planet called home.
Karen Plumley - Karen Plumley is a writer specializing in parenting and education. She works for Parenting NH and the Hippo, NH's most widely read ...
