Each year, as we prepare to celebrate Earth Day on April 22nd, we consider how we can be doing more for our earth and environment. One thing we can do now is not let ourselves be limited to one day and, instead, take the challenge to celebrate Earth Month — a growing initiative to spread awareness of our Earth more than once a year.
With EiE, you can connect with your learners this month with engaging, research-based activites and digital storybooks. And preparing a month’s worth of Earth-themed curricula doesn’t have to be daunting, knowing you can rely on our complete, easy to use materials and teacher guides. While we have plenty more lessons to love for grades K-8, here are our favorites for this Earth Month:
Water, Water Everywhere: Designing Water Filters - The storybook Saving Salila’s Turtle introduces students to the problem of water pollution—and to some solutions. Students will investigate the properties of filter materials, apply their knowledge of water, and think like environmental engineers as they plan, construct, test and improve their own water filters.
Go Green: Engineering Recycled Racers - In this unit, kids will use recycled materials that would ordinarily be discarded to engineer their own toy cars, then compete in a Recycled Racer Rally.
Catching the Wind: Designing Windmills - The storybook Leif Catches the Wind introduces students to wind turbines that generate renewable energy. Students will study how common machines such as mechanical pencils and egg beaters work, then use their mechanical engineering skills to solve a real world challenge as they design sailboats and windmills that catch the wind.
A Stick in the Mud: Evaluating a Landscape - Suman Crosses the Karnali River takes students to Nepal, where people rely on innovative cable bridges called TarPuls to cross flooded rivers during monsoon season. Digging into the role of geo-technical engineers, students must select a safe, flood-proof, and erosion-proof location for a new TarPul.
How are you celebrating Earth Day this year? We’d love to hear from you—let us know in the comments below!
