Earth Day Round Up

Every year on April 22nd we celebrate Earth Day. Although Silent Spring enlightened many United States citizens on the dangers of polluting in 1962, it wasn't until 1969 that two unlikely senators created the first Earth Day event. Senator Gaylord Nelson and Senator Pete McCloskey paired up with Denis Hayes (a student activist) to organize a campus teach-in. Senator Gaylord Nelson had been inspired by the student's anti-war movement and watching a national tragedy unfold in their backyard. In January of that year, a massive oil spill happened in Santa Barbara, California.

 Realizing the potential for success, the next year Senator Nelson and a staff of 85 people promoted Earth Day on a national level. Earth Day 1970 was such a success it lead to the creation of many organizations. "By the end of 1970, the first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of other first of their kind environmental laws, including the National Environmental Education Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and the Clean Air Act" (The History of Earth Day). In 1990, Earth Day went global. And it has been growing ever since. 

The classroom is the perfect place to continue educating future citizens on Earth Day. There are many ways in which you can.

PenPal Schools: Protecting Our Planet

PenPal Schools creates project-based learning topics that connects students around the world. Students work together on cross-curricular activities based on real-world problems or scenarios. PenPal Schools is recommended for grades 3-12th. Teachers can join PenPal Schools for free! Teachers can complete up to 5 topics with a free account. (Psst there's a paid version and PenPal School offers a scholarship to districts too!) 

In Protecting Our Planet, students connect with their virtual penpals and read through a wide variety of information to help select a topic they are interested in. From saving the rhinos to drilling for oil, students are sure to find a topic they enjoy. Each topic has related videos, 3 different reading levels, vocabulary, and an open-ended response question. After reading through the topics, students will get to select the project they want to work on. Have students that have a hard time picking a project? PenPals suggests projects they can work on. PenPal Schools is a great way to get PBL and student-centered learning in your classroom.

Yale National Initiative: 2020 Volume 5 Caretakers versus Exploiters: Impacting Biodiversity in the Age of Humans

The Yale National Intiative or YNI, is a fellowship program that partners teachers and subject matter experts (Yale professors, authors, etc) together. Teachers learn about a particular topic between May and July and then meet in July for a two-week intensive session. The result of the program is a curriculum unit fully developed by a teacher based on the topic. All topics are then published online for teachers around the world to use in their classrooms. I was fortunate enough to participate in the 2020 and 2021 years. The topic from 2020 Caretakers Vs. Exploiters is a perfect unit for Earth Day. Presented by Paul Turner, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, each participant read Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History and created a unit targeted toward our grade level. The participants taught grades ranging from 2nd to 12th. Topics range from the spread of disease to how humans impact specific environments such as Pochantos Park in Virginia. By clicking on the blue titles of the units, you will find everything you need to teach the unit.  Although the term unit is used, some topics are one lesson while others are spanned out over several weeks. Each unit will describe how to best teach the lessons. You can also pick apart pieces of the unit to use. The best part is that these units are free and teachers add to them every year. Units span back to 2005 online and can be searched by discipline, year, or topic. The current years' session begins in late May and units will be posted in late October of 2022.

Nearpod: The UN Climate Report

Nearpod has its fair share of Earth Day activities, including the UN Climate Report from this year (for grades 6-12th). Starting with an explanation of what climate change is, this unit dives into the causes and effects of global warming, how trade affects our world, and greenhouse gas emissions.  Students are encouraged to share their thoughts throughout the lesson. This lesson would be best taught live and whole-group.

Wakelet: Earth Day 2022

The final piece of this round up is Wakelet. Wakelet is a curation website (think Pinterest). This particular Wakelet has several activities for students to engage with on the topic of Earth Day. They can go in any order they like. The Wakelet contains videos from National Geographic, articles, and a final question asking what students can do to protect the Earth. This would be best used as an early finisher activity.

Happy Earth Day!