Pre K-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide

Price: $47.40
(as of May 06, 2025 12:31:21 UTC – Details)

A popular resource for educators of elementary and middle school students, PLT’s PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide includes 96 hands-on, multidisciplinary activities that bring the environment into the classroom, and students into the environment. This guide is filled with practical, hands-on activities for teachers, nonformal educators, and youth group leaders to connect children to nature and increase young people’s awareness and knowledge about their environment.

Charting Diversity. Birds and Worms. Pollution Search. These are some of the fun, hands-on activities with emphasis on science, reading, writing, mathematics, and social studies that use the environment to engage students in learning – both outside and indoors. Topics include trees and forests, wildlife, water, air, energy, waste, climate change, invasive species, community planning, and more. Each activity is tailored to specific grade levels and learning objectives.

Background science content is provided for teachers. The lesson plans are flexible and can be incorporated into existing curriculum and non-formal education programs. The activities are correlated to state and national academic standards, including Common Core, and have an emphasis on STEM.

What’s included:

96 hands-on, multidisciplinary activities integrate core subjects like science, reading, writing, mathematics, and social studies.The activities are interactive and fun for both educators and students. They engage students in learning and connect children to nature and the outdoors.Activities can be applied in urban, suburban, or rural settings. Lesson planning worksheets help you plan how to facilitate activities with your students in your own setting.Each activity includes background information and science content for teachers to effectively teach each activity’s topic. Topics include forests, wildlife, water, air, energy, waste, climate change, invasive species, community planning, and more.Lesson plans are flexible and can be easily incorporated into your existing curriculum. Activities are practical and adaptable. They are easy to do, require minimal preparation; no special supplies are needed.Activities can be used as individual, stand-alone lessons, or several activities can be linked together into a unit of instruction using a storyline technique. Storylines suggested in the guide support learning progressions that hold areas of knowledge and skills together.How to think, not what to think. Activities are designed to develop students’ critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.Independent evaluators determined activities increase students’ knowledge, reasoning, and academic skills.Each activity includes correlations to state academic standards, Common Core State Standards, and supports the Next Generation Science Standards’ three-dimensional approach.Activities are also correlated to scouts merit badges, 4-H and other nonformal programs for positive youth development through in-school and after-school programs, school and community clubs, and summer camps.Supporting features include literature connections; technology extensions; cooperative learning; differentiated instruction; enrichment suggestions; and tools to assess student learning.Cross-reference indices for activities include Subject; Grade Level; Time Consideration & Setting; Technology Connections; Topic; and Skills.Also included are a variety of appendices, for example, tips for teaching out-of-doors; tips for bringing nature indoors; and the role of the teacher for teaching about environmental issues in the classroom and effective environmental education that does not advocate any particular viewpoint on environmental issues.

Benefits of Environmental Education

Environmental education is the study of the relationships and interactions between dynamic natural and human systems.

Environmental education:

Includes learning in the field as well as the classroom.Incorporates the teaching methods of outdoor education, experiential education, and place‐based education.Promotes school/community partnerships.Is inherently interdisciplinary. Outdoor activities increase student engagement and interest in science and in all core subjects.Boosts student achievement in science, math, reading, writing and social studies.Is hands‐on, student‐centered, inquiry driven, engages higher level thinking skills, and is relevant to students’ everyday lives.Is especially good for incorporating STEM, civic skills, and green career pathways.Develops awareness, increases knowledge, builds skills, and creates the capacity for stewardship and good citizenship regarding the environment upon which we depend for life support.Helps improve the health of children. Getting kids outdoors to experience their natural world is an important tool in the battle to prevent obesity, alleviate attention deficit disorder, and address other related health problems.Helps young people make informed choices in their own lives, prepares students for real-world challenges and equips them with the skills needed for a 21st century workforce. Business leaders increasingly believe that an environmentally literate workforce is critical to their long-term success.

From the Publisher

Explore Nature

Project Learning Tree is an environmental education program that gets children out into nature to explore and learn about their environment — with a focus on trees. It aligns with Common Core State Standards in English language arts and math, and science and social studies standards.

Children learn why leaves turn yellow in the fall. They learn about pollinators and how bees help produce the food we eat. They learn how seeds travel through the wind and grow in the soil where they land. They create nature journals, develop their creative writing skills, craft stories from their observations. They “adopt” a tree and learn about that species and watch how it changes through the seasons. They pretend to be trees and gather the nutrients they need for them to survive, collecting different colored squares for each element. They learn to “read” a cross section of a tree to see how old it is through the number of rings and what happened in each year. They learn to focus and observe using their five senses. They map out sounds they hear, they collect data and build bar graphs, comparing different elements in nature they find. They learn in a different way.

Designed to develop students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Lesson plans are flexible, easily incorporated into existing curriculum or nonformal education programs.

Use the environment to teach core subjects

Our hands-on activities are fun and full of learning!

Multi-disciplinary, inquiry-based, with an emphasis on science, reading, writing, mathematics, and social studies. Correlated to state and national academic standards.

Activities contain background information and science content for teachers. Supporting features include literature connections, technology extensions, differentiated instruction, enrichment suggestions, and student assessment tools.

Make teaching and learning fun! Outside and indoors Suitable for urban, suburban, or rural settings

Teaching About the Environment

Outside and indoors

Project Learning Tree is for teachers and other educators, parents, and community leaders working with youth of all ages.

In urban, suburban, and rural settings

Take kids safely outdoors with award-winning supplemental lesson plans and easy-to-do activities.

Fun and hands-on

Children don’t realize how much they’re learning!

Engaging Children in Learning Age-appropriate activities Practical and flexible Thoroughly tested teaching techniques Multidisciplinary, focus on STEM Correlated to academic standards Build communication, collaboration, critical-thinking skills Improve health, social and emotional learning Connect children to nature, introduce green careers

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Project Learning Tree; 4th edition (January 1, 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 480 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0997080604
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0997080605
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.35 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.25 x 1 x 10.75 inches