12 Fun Earth Day Activities to do With Middle Schoolers

Inside: Finding good Earth Day activities for your middle school students is a breeze! These low budget activities will have your students make the world a better place!

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Earth Day Activities for Middle School Students

Each year, I aim to make our Earth Day activities both exciting and educational. This year, I’m taking things up a notch—Earth Day is on a Tuesday, but why settle for one day when we can celebrate all week? That’s right, I’m turning it into Earth WEEK! Every day, we’ll dive into a new activity focused on honoring our planet and finding ways to make it a better place. Check out some of the fun, hands-on Earth Day activities I’ve got lined up for middle school students!

Try These Fun Earth Day Activities for your Middle School Students!

1. Nature Walk

Take your classes outside. See how many birds, trees and plants they can recognize. This is a fantastic opportunity to help students connect with the environment and learn about the natural world around them. During the walk, encourage students to identify different plants, trees, and flowers, and discuss how each species contributes to the ecosystem. They can also spot wildlife, like birds, insects, or small animals, and learn about their role in the environment. Teachers can point out features like rocks, water sources, and soil, explaining how these elements work together to support life. By observing the changes in the seasons, students will gain a deeper understanding of nature’s cycles and the importance of protecting our planet. Need help identifying something? There are a number of free apps for your phone that can help. Try the Audubon Bird Guide App or Leaf Snap Plant Identification Guide.

2. Nature Litter Walk

While outside, pick up litter. Remember to bring garbage bags with you before you go. Make sure students use separate bags for trash and recyclable materials.

I find that having my students pick up trash that doesn’t belong to them makes them a little angry. I use this as a springboard for discussions on why they shouldn’t litter, no matter what the reason.

3. Nature Art

Collect pine cones, leaves, grass, flowers, etc. Let your students get creative! Students can bring them back and make a collage of what they have found. Make sure they try to identify what they have found. Check out this cool blog for further information on using nature as art.

4. Bird Feeders

Remember that walk you just took your students on? Find some pine cones! Pine cones can be used as bird feeders. First, find string and make a loop to hang the pine cone. Next, spread on peanut butter (careful of allergies), then roll in bird seed, stale cereal, nuts, raisins, etc. Finally, hang them outside, preferably near your classroom window.

5. Bulletin Board

Teach Earth Day using this interactive bulletin board activity. This activity lists 10 facts about Earth and how we can help, with a research and writing prompt. It conveniently features coordinating bulletin board borders and three different heading choices in two different font styles.

6. Video Learning

Watch a video about the history of Earth Day. I personally like this video from PBS. It gives an accurate description of the origin of Earth Day and why we recognize it every year.

7. Repurpose Milk Containers

Plan this one a week or so in advance. Plant seeds inside paper milk containers collected from lunch. Ask your students who drink these at lunch to collect them over a period of a week or two.

Any seed will work, simply add soil, moisten, then add a seed. Once they sprout send them home and have students recycle the milk container.

I collected these and planted marigolds in them with my students. They are going to bring them home for Mother’s Day.

8. Play an Escape Game

This Escape Room will be my fun Friday activity. It will sum up everything we have accomplished during Earth Week. It has Earth Day history, tips for how to reduce, reuse, recycle and compost, and a lot of fun activities for students to complete. What a fun way to end this cool week!

9 Learn About Recycling

Teach your students about the proper ways to recycle and the positive impact it can have on our environment.

Quick facts:

On average, humans create about 4 pounds of garbage every day.
While Americans only make up about 5% of the world’s population, we generate around 40% of the world’s total waste.

Show them how to reduce, reuse and recycle. Making sure your students recycle within your classroom is good practice for this. A useful video to show is this one, and is called, “How Recycling Works.”

10. Repurpose

Now that your students are recycling experts, have them give repurposing a try!

Collect some recycled materials and have a brainstorming session on how they can be reused inside the classroom. You will be surprised at how thoughtful kids are about repurposing. For example, an old yogurt container can hold crayons, paper towel tubes can store plastic bags, and so much more.

11. Learn How to Compost

Have your students research how composting works. Set up a mini composting bin inside your classroom and then transfer it outside. This is easily collected right after lunch. Students simply save their fruit and vegetable leftovers (no meat or dairy) in a closed container in your room, then they can transfer it to a larger bin outside. This bin should include dead leaves and grass clippings. Once every few days students can go outside to the bin and turn the contents. Within a few months students will have fresh soil to plant some plants with. Need more info? Check out National Geographic’s lesson on composting.

12. Graph and Color

With any extra time throughout the week I like to add in this differentiated graphing activity. It is great for early finishers, sub plans and also for reinforcing graphing skills. Each picture is available in either one or four quadrants which makes differentiation a breeze!

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