Earth Day

 

Looking for ways to engage your high school or middle school students in environmental issues and the climate crisis? Here are our latest lessons and teaching ideas - good for Earth Day, Earth Week, or any week.
 

Earth Day 2022
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_Day_-_Earth_from_Space.jpg

 

English teacher Sarah Outterson-Murphy provides brief descriptions of a range of short stories and novels exploring a changing climate, with questions for discussion. (Updated August 2021) See the updated and expanded guide.

Students learn about and discuss the current state of the youth climate movement and how young people are helping to shape our nation's response to the climate crisis.

Students explore the accelerating move toward electric vehicles and consider how we might address some of the remaining obstacles to this transition.

High school teacher Sarah Outterson-Murphy shares how her students developed their English skills by grappling with a "real, urgent, relevant, large-scale, yet-unsolved problem." 

Reading and discussing fiction gave my students time and space to respond creatively to the climate crisis—and consider how to use their own power to address it. 

The fires raging across Australia in recent months have led to shocking devastation. Students discuss the scope of the disaster and its relationship to climate change; share their feelings about it; and consider responses, from supporting relief efforts to climate activism.

In this circle activity, students reflect on the words of youth climate activists from around the world and consider their own values and hopes for the future. 

On September 20, 2019, students around the world will participate in a strike to demand immediate action on the global climate crisis. In this lesson, students learn about youth activism on the climate, including its origins, and discuss some of the problems and prospects of youth climate activism. ...

Where do the 2020 presidential candidates stand on climate change?  And why is the issue getting more attention in 2020 than in past elections? Students explore the issue, the candidates, and the social movements that are helping to drive the debate through readings, discussion, and activities.

This series of lessons helps students (grades 3-5) learn about why is climate change is happening, why it matters, and what they can do about it.