Earth Day Lesson Plans: Charter Schools

Earth Day lesson Plans

The young generation did not create the environmental problems that we're facing. Unfortunately, however, they're the ones who are going to have to solve them. The earlier our kids can start learning about pollution, global warming and other environmental dangers, the better.

As a teacher, I try to stress these important points through my earth day lesson plans. I teach at a charter school, where we try to emphasize environmental education above everything else. We have a school community garden, a compost bin and an active recycling program which we use to teach the kids how to be responsible stewards for the earth. With our earth day environmental program, however, we go a step beyond that.

Earth day lesson plans

are a bit different at the school every year. Last year, for example, we had local watershed expert from the Department of Natural Resources come in to talk to us about water pollution. We live in an area with old sewers which tend to periodically overflow during storms, causing raw sewage to drain into local waterways. All the kids knew that was a bad thing, of course, but few of them understood how seriously it could affect the local ecosystem. In the Earth Day lesson plan, we learned about algae blooms, eutrophication and other effects from fertilizer, sewage and other types of runoff that pollute lakes and waterways.

I try to make sure that my Earth Day lesson plans emphasize solutions, not just problems. At the end of the lesson about runoff, I worked with the class as a group to try to brainstorm solutions to sewer runoff. Some of the ideas they had for how to limit or prevent water pollution were quite creative and ingenious. I know not everyone in my class will enter environmental studies, but I am confident that at least one or two of them will grow up to be great environmentalists.

Of course, Earthday lessons are not complete without a bit of hands on activity. When we were studying water pollution, we went down to the local river as part of a trash pickup detail. The kids met with other volunteers and helped remove bottles, plastic bags and other detritus from the shores. Next year, we may even get to help the rangers take water samples to monitor the quality of the local waterways. My kids are big science fans, and getting to actually do some of the water monitoring work feels like a big honor to them. Needless to say, they are excited to have the chance!