Earth Day is a great opportunity to give middle school students the chance to learn more about our planet and how to help preserve it. Use informational text resources, books about environmental issues, and passages about natural disasters to help students learn more about the Earth and the day we choose to celebrate it. This list of 24 activities includes ideas you can use for this annual event in your very own middle school classroom!
1. Alien Visitor Writing Activity
Creative writing at its best is this alien visitor writing activity. It is a fun way to include Earth day activities in your daily writing while writing from a different perspective.
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2. Virtual Field Trips
Virtual field trips are always a great idea! They provide an opportunity to travel outside the classroom that not all students would get otherwise. Students can see places that will show them places that need help with water pollution or ground pollution.
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3. Bottle Painting Recycling Activity
Reusing and recycling are important concepts for middle school students to learn about. Collect bottles to use for painting and help students learn the value of recycling and reusing plastic, and also how to repurpose these items for good, like creating art.
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4. Bottle Cap Mural
Collect bottle tops of all kinds for this art project! Let students work together to form a beautiful art project of the planet to display in your school or classroom.
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5. Earth Day Recycled Crayons
Make recycled crayons with your students. Show them how to recycle broken crayon bits to form new crayons by melting down the old ones and using a mold to form new ones. These are great to donate to your local art teacher or elementary school.
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6. Litter Clean Up
Organizing a litter clean-up day can be very beneficial. Students can divide up areas to work on and form teams that can tackle each section together. If you can leave the classroom, you may look into going to a public place in your town that could use some help.
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7. Drinking Water Experiment
Another good science experiment to try on Earth Day is this drinking water experiment. It is a great way to show the effects of water pollution and how water can be affected by choices that humans make.
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8. Escape Room
Creating an Earth Day escape room is a great way to break up the regular classroom activities with something a little different. You can use a pre-made one, like this, or make your own. Students can work together to find the clues and figure out how to make their escape!
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9. Learn How to Compost
Teaching students how to compost is a great idea for Earth day. Students will have the opportunity to learn more about the benefits and how it can help their environments and their own towns. This is a great science experiment for students to participate in as well.
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10. Have a Debate
Organizing a classroom debate is a great way to tie many skills together. Include reading and writing in preparation for the debate. Use oral language skills to present the data in the debate and have students take different stances to debate against each other.
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11. Write an Essay About Plastic Waste
Plastic waste is a very real problem. Learning more about specific content like this is a great way to teach persuasive writing skills as well. Help students write from a perspective that reminds them to pitch their views to others.
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12. Make Bird Feeders
Even the big kids enjoy this activity! Have students create bird feeders from ice cream cones, peanut butter, and birdseed. Students can hang these from the trees around the school and enjoy watching the birds that come to eat.
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13. Earth Day Reader’s Theater
For a change of pace and a break from worksheets or craft projects, try this reader’s theater activity. Earth day is a perfect time to take a break from all the printable activities and let students take part in this read-aloud activity.
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14. Bean Pole Garden Tent
Let students take learning outdoors. Students can work together to create a bean-pole tent. If you have the space for a small garden, this would be a great addition, as students can grow these beans in an upward direction and save space but still have plenty of results.
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15. Root Veggie Grow Bags
Growing root vegetables is a great way to grow things that students can use! Watch as these root vegetables grow “under the ground”. These bags have a window that allows a sneak peek so you can watch as they change while growing.
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16. Earth Day Learning Lab
This digital resource is a great way to take kids outside the classroom and into a virtual learning lab. Students will experience new learning relating to Earth day. Students will have the option to participate by watching videos or reading through the collection of informational texts.
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17. Start Some Seed Jars
Let students try their hand at growing. Starting seed jars is a fun way to let students see that they can grow something if they stick with it. Start small and let students experience the benefit of growing something on their own.
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18. Start Recycling
Activities on recycling, like creating a recycling program, are a great way to get students involved in learning more about recycling and waste management. Reusing recycled items to create crafting projects is another great way to help our planet.
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19. Read and Respond
Read-and-respond prompts are always a great way to build engagement, social interaction, and content retention. Students can use the digital resource to address concepts like environmental concerns and current events related to protecting our planet.
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20. Think Aloud
This classroom activity combines digital and print resources. Students can read to learn more about Earth day and how to protect our planet and as they do, they can fill out the Google slides and print additional resources. These also serve as great science resources!
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21. All About Earth Day and Its History
Another great way to teach more about these concepts is through the use of informational text. You could use this with copies of student exit slips to have students recall facts from their nonfiction reading or use this as a resource for a writing activity.
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22. Writing Activity
This writing project is a fun way to learn more about how to protect and help our environment. These activity sheets focus on writing and reading and can be used in a science lesson as well.
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23. Recycled Art Projects
Challenge kids to see what kind of art they can make from recycled paper! This is a great project for students in grades K to 12. This activity may even spark some interest in creating a recycling program at school.
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24. Earth Day Collage
You can teach the basics of recycling with this art project idea! Use scraps of paper to create a colorful craft paper version of the Earth. This is a great way to show students how to repurpose recycled paper and challenge kids to create something new.
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