General Environmental Education Resources

ACT GREEN! - Kids Tackle Climate Change
Scholastic has launched ACT GREEN! at www.scholastic.com/actgreen, a fun, educational website designed to motivate and empower kids to take action in school, at home and in their community to preserve the environment. This multi-media website provides kids, parents and teachers with customized green plans, expert tips, inspiring green short films provided by Live Earth, and a "Greenroom" to share ideas with other kids.

Ag in the Classroom
Agriculture in the Classroom is a grassroots program coordinated by the United States Department of Agriculture. Its goal is to help students gain a greater awareness of the role of agriculture in the economy and society. The Web site provides teacher resources, content for students and information on state agriculture programs.

Alliance for Community Trees
Urban forestry is not an oxymoron, but rather the idea that trees in cities provide unique benefits such as energy efficiency, stormwater management, and economic development. In fact, your city or town may have an urban forester! The Alliance for Community Trees (ACT) is a coalition of more than 150 urban forestry groups in 39 states... one likely near you. Many of these organizations specialize in K-12 educational programs.  Contact an urban forestry organization near you today, and ask them to visit your classroom or help organize a fieldtrip, or visit ACT to find out more about urban forestry: www.actrees.org.

Audubon Adventures
Audubon Adventures is an environmental education program for children in grades 3 to 5. Developed by professional environmental educators, it presents basic, scientifically accurate facts about birds, wildlife, and their habitats.. The program is used by classroom teachers, after-school program coordinators, special education instructors, language arts teachers, and homeschoolers and is aligned with the national standards for the language arts and science as well as state academic achievement standards in CA, DE, FL, IL, MO, NM, NV, NY, OH, PA, TX, WY.

CarbonCounted
CarbonCounted provides practical advice on how to reduce your carbon footprint through everyday choices. The features and articles on the site are written by professional journalists and experts with a particular interest in carbon footprints. Although not directly geared to students, this site is useful as a resource for forming an action plan after using the EE Week Carbon Footprint Calculator.

Center for Environmental Education Online
Founded by Jayni and Chevy Chase, the Center for Environmental Education Online is a dynamic resource for educators and students. Since its creation, CEE has been a vital link between the ‘in-the-trenches" educators and the abundant environmental resources available. CEE provides important connections for countless in-service teachers and in-the-field educators bringing accurate, interesting, timely, and inspiring teaching materials and educational resources into schools and classrooms.

Conservation Education Resources from the U.S. Forest Service
The Forest Services' new web site for conservation education features a diversity of web pages, documents, photo galleries and links that will build both formal and non-formal teachers' capacity to deliver conservation education. The Educator Toolbox offers a collection of conservation education programs and materials organized by grade, as well as professional development opportunities. The Student's Corner offers child-focused materials and resources. 

Cool School Challenge
The Cool School Challenge educates young people about climate change and the everyday actions they can take to reduce their impact locally and globally. Designed for grades 7-12, the Challenge is an online toolkit that engages students and teachers in practical strategies to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions schoolwide. Through improved energy efficiency, reduced consumption, increased recycling, and changes in transportation behaviors, Challenge participants learn how simple actions, taken together, can create a climate of change.

Create a New Climate for Action
EPA's Office of Children's Health Protection and Environmental Education has launched a campaign to educate middle and high school students about climate change, its effects on children's health, and actions teens can take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and become Climate Ambassadors in their communities. Encourage your students to join with other teens to green the energy scene and make a difference to the planet, children's health, and the future.

Earth Buddies
Earth Buddies is the fruit of a collaborative effort by a team of students from Singapore and Wisconsin, and is designed to teach students how they can take action to combat major environmental problems. The site includes tips on how to be more environmentally concious at home, at school, and in the community, and guides students through the process of creating their own Squad for Environmental Education for Kids (S.E.E.K.). The site is targeted to kids age 8 and up. 

Earth Day Challenge
The Mobile Learning Institute Earth Day Challenge is a project for middle and high school students interested in making films and helping to save the planet. The site provides information on Earth Day Challenge filmmaking contests, summer camps, awards and more.

Earth Man
The Earthman Project is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization using music, technology, and the arts to inspire people to protect our Earth’s environment.

Environmental Literacy Council
The Environmental Literacy Council website offers a virtual library of the environment with primers explaining topics in environmental science; freely accessible labs and activities developed with nationally recognized organizations such as the National Science Teachers Association; and science-based reviews of the textbooks students use everyday.

Encyclopedia of the Earth
Encyclopedia of the Earth is a new electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society. The Encyclopedia is a free, fully searchable collection of articles that are written in non-technical language that is useful to students, educators, scholars, professionals, and the general public.

ERTHNXT
ERTHNXT, formerly The Future of Life, is a non-profit organization with national programs like Trees for the 21st Century that offer adults tools to help lead young people ages 6-18 in scientifically-based environmental activities; encouraging them to take action which can be repeated and expanded as participants grow in knowledge and capacity.

Focus the Nation
To support and expand an educated, engaged, and active citizenry dedicated to enacting sustainable change, Focus the Nation is dedicated to providing opportunities for community education on clean energy, networking youth initiatives, and developing clean energy leaders. Focus the Nation is organizing a nationwide town hall meeting on America's energy future on April 18th, 2009. Get involved.

The Groundwater Foundation
The Groundwater Foundation seeks to motivate people to care for and about groundwater by focusing on groundwater education and outreach. Many resources for educators (such as coloring sheets, activity pages, lesson plans, and puzzles) can be found at their Kids Corner.

The Library of Congress - Nature and the Environment
This site houses multimedia resources from the Library of Congress that support instruction about nature and the environment. Resources include expert presentations, exhibitions, bibliographies, webcasts, and other online materials.

Maggie's Earth Adventures
Maggie's Earth Adventures (MEA) LLC is a free educational website offered to teachers worldwide in both English and Spanish. MEA's animated stories address important environmental issues such as over-fishing, invasive species, animal habitats, and the Chesapeake Bay. Online interactive games and FREE downloadable standards-based activities in four subject areas are available. A key factor contributing to the success of this program is the Weekly Activity Packet whereby teachers receive free, self-directed lesson plans at the emergent reader, primary, and upper elementary level.

Nature Explore Club for Educators
The Nature Explore Club Educator Edition gives preschool through 3rd grade teachers an easy and affordable way to use the outdoors as an integral part of learning.  Correlates to National Science, Math, Visual Arts, and Social Studies standards.  Developed by the National Arbor Day Foundation and Dimensions Educational Research Foundation.  See the link above for ordering information.  

River of Words
Each year, in affiliation with The Library of Congress Center for the Book, River of Words conducts a free international poetry and art contest for youth on the theme of watersheds. The contest is designed to help youth explore the natural and cultural history of the place they live and to express, through poetry and art, what they discover. Curriculum materials and other resources are available online.

Roots and Shoots
Roots & Shoots, a program of the Jane Goodall Institute, is a powerful, youth-driven, global network of more than 8,000 groups in almost 100 countries. Together, youth of all ages are taking action to improve our world through service learning projects that promote care and concern for animals, the environment, and the human community.

Science Buddies
Science Buddies is the premier online source of K-12 science project information for educators, students, and parents. The site offers everything an educator needs to help guide students through a science project including a large library of free project ideas in 26 fields of science and engineering, a Topic Selection Wizard to help students find a topic they will enjoy, a step by step project guide based on the scientific method, grading rubrics, and many other resources designed to make science projects a fun educational experience.

Smart Consumers: An Educator’s Guide to Exploring Consumer Issues and the Environment
Smart Consumers is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary guide that helps middle school students learn more about how their consumer choices affect the environment and how they can make a difference by buying differently. The toolkit includes an Educator's Guide with background information; fourteen hands-on and creative activities that range from analyzing pop song lyrics and advertisements to acting out product life cycles and calculating ecological footprints; an annotated list of resources for more information; and more.  Please see the link above for ordering information; if you would like to inquire about a discount on bulk orders, please contact New American Dream's outreach department at outreach@newdream.org.

Teens For Planet Earth
This website, created by the Wildlife Conservation Society, targets teens by providing facts about the natural world, the latest conservation news, and opportunities to discover how teens can make a difference by carrying out environmental service-learning projects in their communities. The Teens For Planet Earth Service Awards recognize students for outstanding service-learning projects that demonstrate commitment to the environment. Much of the website is also available in Spanish.

These Come from Trees
These Come From Trees is a "guerilla public service announcement" that helps people reduce unintentional overuse of paper through a simple, contextual reminder: an attractive, wash resistant sticker posted on a paper towel dispenser, napkin dispenser or photocopier. Testing by the These Come From Trees project's founders and participating schools show reductions in paper consumption of up to 30%. These Come From Trees makes their stickers available free of charge to K-12 schools. Download ideas for These Come from Trees lesson plans.

The University of Wisconsin's Environmental Resources Center
The Give Water a Hand Action Guide for students and Leader Guidebook for educators offer step-by-step instructions to take action to help improve the health of local waterways and the local ecosystem in turn.  The guides were designed for students aged 9-12, but adaptations for use with all age groups are provided.  This great resource for schools, homeschools, scout groups, and after-school programs was produced by the University of Wisconin's Environmental Resources Center.  The action guide has also been produced in spanish.

The Weather Channel’s Weather Classroom
The experts at The Weather Channel have created The Weather Classroom as a resource for educators, students, and parents. Weatherclassroom.com offers a comprehensive collection of weather-related content, including lesson plans for educators, an interactive weather forecast for students, and a weather word glossary and storm encyclopedia for parents.