Elementary teachers have a lot of “musts” on their plate, including required curriculum and assessment, meeting standards benchmarks, providing for the needs of a diverse student population and more. With so many demands, how do you incorporate one more thing? This is often a concern for K-5 teachers trying to fit environmental education into their lesson planning. Fortunately, there are easy ways to incorporate environmental themes in all of the elementary classroom’s core subjects (Math, Language Arts, Science and Social Studies) while building academic skills.

Environmental Literacy Plans Provide Guidance

A growing number of states have adopted and implemented Environmental Literacy Plans (ELPs) which outline ways to include environmental education that align with state standards in multiple disciplines. According to the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE), 20 states have already implemented ELPs and most others are in the process of developing them. 

ELP frameworks for elementary grades are much more than nature studies. Most include standards that stress the environmental impacts of human activities. For instance, Maryland’s Environmental Literacy Standards Framework includes these Essential Questions for PreK-2:

How do humans alter their environment to meet their wants and needs? What are some possible impacts of human alteration on the environment? How can we reduce the impact of human activity on the environment as the human population grows?

Even if your state doesn’t currently have an ELP, you don’t need a formal framework to start instilling your lesson plans with enriching activities that increase your elementary students’ environmental literacy year-round, and not just on the occasional trips to the zoo or local nature center.

How to Integrate Environmental Education in All School Subjects

Using environmental topics as themes in teaching multiple subjects is a great way to engage elementary students and help them understand real-world issues. Here is just a sampling of ways teachers can integrate environmental themes into the core elementary subject areas.

Environmental Education in Language Arts Class

• Reading & Literature: Choose books or stories with environmental themes such as The Lorax by Dr. Seuss or Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin. These stories can spark discussions about nature, sustainability, and caring for the environment.
• Writing: Encourage students to write letters to local government officials, create persuasive essays about environmental protection, or write imaginative stories that center around environmental issues (e.g., a day in the life of a tree, animal, or the Earth).
• Poetry: Have students write poems about nature, endangered species, or the beauty of the environment. Or, you can read to them a selection of kid-friendly environmental poetry from published poets. This can also tie into the study of rhyme, metaphor, and personification. Check out PopEd’s Timber – the deforestation activity is followed up with an Ogden Nash poem and student’s independent writing.
• Research Projects: Students can research environmental topics (e.g., Amazon biodiversity or the disappearance of many bee colonies) and present their findings through reports, presentations, or posters. They can also conduct interviews with local experts like naturalists or farmers.

Mathematics

• Data Collection, Analysis and Graphing: Use environmental data such as local air quality, recycling rates or observations in a gardening lab to teach measurement, graphing, and data analysis. Students can calculate and interpret trends like how recycling reduces waste or how long it takes different items to break down into compost.
• Statistics: Introduce basic statistics by collecting data on how much paper or plastic the class uses each week and then calculating averages or comparing to other classes or schools. Have them create a pie chart on global land use, like in PopEd’s classic activity, Earth: The Apple of Our Eye.
• Geometry & Measurement: Have students calculate areas and perimeters of green spaces, or measure how much compostable food is thrown away in the school cafeteria.
• Problem Solving: Create word problems using environmental concepts like the size of different countries’ ecological footprints.

Science

• Ecosystems: Teach about ecosystems, biodiversity, food chains, and how different species rely on each other. Activities can include creating models of local ecosystems or simulating carrying capacity of an animal in a particular habitat.
• Climate: Explore climate change and renewable energy sources. Students can investigate how climate change affects different regions and create models to show how climate sinks work.
• Pollution & Conservation: Study the effects of pollution (air, water, soil) and explore conservation efforts like recycling, composting, and reducing waste. 
• STEM Labs: Use engineering skills to clean up a model river. Set up an experiment to show how rooftop gardens can cool a building.

Social Studies

• Global Environmental Issues: Discuss environmental issues on a global scale, such as deforestation, endangered species, or global warming. Students can learn how different countries approach these issues and the importance of global cooperation.
• Environmental History: Investigate how the environment has changed over time due to human activities. Students can explore topics like the development of cities, the rise of agriculture, or the history of industrialization.
• Local Community and Sustainability: Explore local environmental efforts, such as community gardens, recycling programs, or conservation initiatives. 
• Civic Responsibility & Advocacy: Teach students about how individuals can make a difference in protecting the environment, like advocating for clean water, trees, or waste reduction. This can tie into discussions about laws and policies related to environmental protection.

Integrated Activities

• Green Projects: Create projects like designing a “green” city, where students apply their learning about sustainability (from energy-efficient buildings to green spaces) and present their designs.
• School-Wide Sustainability Campaigns: Organize school-wide initiatives like a recycling contest, a trash cleanup day, or a “zero waste” challenge to raise awareness about environmental issues. Students can create posters, write persuasive letters to the principal, or even organize events.

Benefits of Environmental Education: It Increases Academic Achievement

Not only does environmental education help the planet and all its inhabitants, it can also boost students’ academic achievement. Research suggests that environmental education (EE) in elementary schools can promote student success by fostering critical thinking, engagement, and interdisciplinary learning. Programs integrating EE with core subjects have shown improved standardized test scores. Because much of EE involves hands-on, active learning, the lessons foster curiosity and keep students engaged. Students also respond well to instruction that has real-world applications and resonates with their own interests like wildlife conservation and protecting green spaces.

Programs that incorporate environmental themes often require students to analyze data, identify problems, and propose solutions, which enhances critical thinking skills. These skills are transferable across all academic subjects. 

There are also social and emotional benefits to including environmental education in the elementary classroom. Many EE activities involve group work, which builds teamwork and communication skills. Getting outside also increases student well-being. A study in Frontiers in Psychology reported that spending time in nature through EE activities improves focus and reduces stress, creating a better learning environment.

Bring EE into Your Elementary Classroom Now!

Counting on People is a ready-to-use lesson library that simplifies integrating environmental education into various school subjects. In developing our latest edition of this K-5 curriculum, we incorporated many of the strategies described above for a truly multidisciplinary teaching resource. Each of the hands-on activities includes content and skills for multiple core subjects, enabling elementary teachers to help students reach key learning benchmarks while being motivated with real-world content. The emphasis on higher-order skills bolsters student success in all subject areas, while cultivating environmental stewardship and global citizenship. It is a convenient tool for educators, and effective for teaching EE with elementary students.

Counting on People is provided free to all attendees of our elementary-level workshops and webinars, and is also available for purchase. 

Helpful Resources

Sample some of the free activities listed above by downloading them here:

• Timber! – In a simulation, students model what happens to a forest when trees are cut faster than they are planted, and graph their results.
• Crowding Can Be Seedy – Students participate in a simulation and gardening lab for hands-on experience with the effects of crowding on living things.
• Earth: The Apple of Our Eye – An apple is sliced into pieces to model the amount of agricultural land being used on Earth while students track data on a pie chart.
• Who Polluted the River? – Using a highly visual interactive story, K-2 students experience the pollution of a river over time and propose methods to protect the river from current and future pollution.

Learn more about other elementary EE lessons here:

• Counting Carbon – Students solve word problems and use packing peanuts to visualize how much CO2 is produced daily by cars, then participate in a “natural carbon sink” activity to better understand how natural areas can absorb and store carbon dioxide.
• Lend a Hand to the Earth – Students create, and draw out, both class and individual pledges to protect the environment, and discuss the power of cumulative action.
• Green Spaces – Students graph how being outdoors affects their moods and then design an imaginary city that meets both the green space needs and daily living needs of the city’s residents.

Image credits: Elementary classroom (Photo by CDC on Unsplash); Reading outside (ID 155739231 © David Tadevosian | Dreamstime.com)