Join thousands of educators around the country in the single largest environmental education event in US history!  National Environmental Education Week, April 10-16, will involve thousands of educators and millions of students. It will enhance the educational impact of Earth Day and create a full week of environmental education preparation, learning and activities in K-12 classrooms, nature centers, zoos, museums and aquariums. National Environmental Education Week is coordinated by the National Environmental Education & Training Foundation in cooperation with hundreds of outstanding environmental education organizations, education associations, state and federal agencies.  For more information on National Environmental Education Week, go to www.EEWeek.org.

To make it easy to choose the right activities for your class on Earth Day, we’ve selected some hands-on activities for your students from the Rainforest Alliance curriculum that are easy to incorporate into your lessons and help kids get in touch with their local environment.

Kindergarten
Students predict how many different types of insects and trees they will be able to find in a small area of a local forest and a tropical rainforest.  They then collect the data from the forest or schoolyard and compare their findings with the insects and trees that could be found in  tropical rainforests.   View Lesson.


First Grade
Students capture the characteristics of the landscape surrounding their school on a map that identifies sensory and landscape information.  Students observe and record their observations in the schoolyard to create their map.  View Lesson.


Second Grade
Students participate in a BioBlitz of their neighborhood or schoolyard by observing and recording every plant and animal within a designated area, then compare plants and animals living in their own neighborhoods with what they have learned about the rainforest.   View Lesson.


Third Grade
By creating terrariums, students will isolate one factor in an ecosystem and determine how much the loss of that one factor impacts the full ecological system as well as the individual species in that ecosystem.   View Lesson.


Fourth Grade
Students design comic strips, which include suggestions about how different chocolate producers/manufacturers can ensure we can keep our forests intact and have our chocolate too.  View Lesson.


Fifth Grade
Students observe the biodiversity in their schoolyard and connect the adaptations of the animals in their neighborhood to the habitats in which they live. Take students out into the school grounds and look for signs of life, then draw a Web of Life.  Students will learn about the biodiversity of the rainforest and compare and contrast with that of their own schoolyard findings.  View Lesson.


Sixth Grade
Students observe birds in nature and examine pictures of birds, then compare their own theories on patterns of migration to experts’ theories. Students consider how migrating birds help sustain both temperate forests and tropical rainforests.  View Lesson.

View the entire K-6 Rainforest Alliance curriculum on the Learning Site.

Jaguars, the largest of the American cats, are most famous for their beautiful spots, which allow these stealthy animals to hide amidst the grasses, bushes and trees that dominate their habitat.  Jaguars are found in rainforests, seasonally flooded forests, grasslands, woodlands and dry deciduous forest throughout their range in Mexico, Central and South America.  Sadly, these magnificent animals are increasingly threatened by habitat destruction and overhunting.   Your students can learn all about this beautiful cat with our species profile and our newest jaguar coloring page.

Click on the image to the left to download the jaguar coloring page from the Learning Site.

On March 19, 2005 the Rainforest Alliance held two interactive workshops entitled, “Teaching Rainforests and Promoting Latino Students’ Self-Esteem,” for K-6 teachers participating in the New York City Teaching Fellows (NYCTF) program at this year’s NYCTF Conference, “Fellows at Five.”  Through these workshops, new teachers seeking ways to bring environmental education into their classrooms were introduced to the conservation education resources available on the Rainforest Alliance Learning Site.   

Rainforest Alliance staff members were joined by teachers Shirley Mourin and Maria Calisto, who helped to implement the Rainforest Alliance curriculum at Ann Street School in Newark, NJ.  Mourin shared her own experiences using the curriculum, as well as heartwarming stories about the positive changes she has seen in her Hispanic American students since implementing the Rainforest Alliance lessons at Ann Street.  Mourin described the Learning Site as, "a blessing for the kids who come from Latin America to the US where everything is strange to them.” 

The Rainforest Alliance curriculum affects positive changes in Hispanic American students.

Holding an Earth Day fundraiser is a terrific way to raise awareness and funds that go toward conserving the Earth’s precious resources.  Through Adopt-A-Rainforest, you can raise money to send in support of the conservation efforts of our partner organizations in Colombia, Belize, Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador or Nicaragua.  And, because the Rainforest Alliance curriculum is based on conservation work in these areas, your students can learn all about the rainforests they are helping to protect.  Click here for fundraising ideas including bake sales, bottle refund drives and pancake breakfasts that can engage your entire school or community.