EdCircuit StaffCharlotte, NC (Thursday, April 13, 2023) — In celebration of Earth Day 2023, Discovery Education presents K-12 teachers and students a diverse array of cross-curricular digital resources inspiring exploration of the natural world and environmental stewardship. Available on Discovery Education’s Earth Day website and award-winning K-12 learning platform, this collection of high-quality digital content is organized by grade band and has been curated by Discovery Education’s team of curriculum experts. Discovery Education is the worldwide edtech leader whose state-of-the-art digital platform supports learning wherever it takes place.
The Earth Day resources from Discovery Education and its partners have been curated to be easily integrated into educators’ lesson plans and schools’ Earth Day observances. Included in the resources available on the Discovery Education Earth Day website are sustainability-focused materials created in partnership with Sesame Workshop, Seeker, Vooks, and Scripps News, including:
Grades K-12
Vooks: Earth Day Activity Sheet
Vooks is an entire library of storybooks brought to life with beautiful animation, read-aloud narration, engaging music and sound, and read-along text. Use these fun activities to highlight the importance of Earth Day including discussion questions, a coloring sheet, vocabulary cards, and more.
Sesame Workshop: Make Our Earth Better
Sesame Workshop is the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street, the pioneering television show that has been reaching and teaching children since 1969. This resource is part of the Celebrations collection in the Sesame Learning channel. It inspires children to identify as stewards of our environment by exploring their connections to nature and how their positive actions can care for it.
Grades 3-5
Scripps News: Fast Fashion’s Impact on the Environment
Scripps News provides videos on the most important topics and issues with straightforward, opinion-free news and documentaries. In this video, students learn about the fashion industry’s impact on the environment.
Grades 9-12
Seeker: Elements: New Tech Could Eliminate Toxic PFAS From Our Water
Seeker highlights stories about the natural forces and groundbreaking innovations that impact our lives, our planet, and our universe. In this resource, students learn about a new technology that could reduce the number of harmful PFA compounds, PFOs and PFOAs.
In addition, Discovery Education is offering a curated collection of free resources created in collaboration with social impact partners, including:
Sustainability Career Exploration
Grades 6-12
In Celebration of Earth Day, the Discovery Education STEM Careers Coalition (SCC) has released a collection of resources spotlighting sustainability professionals in STEM. See over 200 resources designed to uncover students’ STEM skills to activate future solution seekers. The exciting content available includes resources ranging from hands-on student activities and lessons to an extensive database of career profiles and family activities designed to support students as they explore sustainability and STEM careers.
Science Challenge
Grades 5-8
The 3M Young Scientist Challenge with Discovery Education invites students in grades 5-8 to compete for an exclusive mentorship with a 3M scientist, a $25,000 grand prize, and the chance to earn the title of “America’s Top Young Scientist.” Competition entries are accepted at YoungScientistLab.com until the April 27, 2023 deadline.
To enter, students in grades 5-8 submit a one-to-two-minute video explaining an original idea using science to help solve an everyday problem, including improving the environment. All entries are reviewed by a diverse group of judges and evaluated on their creativity, scientific knowledge, and communication skills.
Classroom Activities
Grades 6-9
Grow energy-water literacy and conservation efforts through classroom activities Conservation Station: Creating a More Resourceful World—an educational initiative with Itron. New activities designed for Earth Day 2023 focus on communication skills, critical and creative thinking, and collaboration in a sustainability context.
Virtual Field Trips
Grades 2-6; 5-10
Build the Changes’ Play to Learn Virtual Field Trip celebrates students’ ability to learn and create change through the power of play. Created in partnership between Discovery Education and the LEGO Group’s sustainability team, the Play to Learn Virtual Field Trip takes students to Billund, Denmark to meet real-life LEGO® play experts as they introduce us to some big challenges facing our planet. Educators can take learning further with an array of standards-aligned classroom resources.
Trane Technologies’ Sustainable Futures Virtual Field Trip gives students a unique, up-close look at how a global climate innovation company impacts our world. Students will meet Trane Technologies’ employees to see how their roles create comfortable, clean, and energy-efficient solutions for homes, buildings, and transportation. Discovery Education’s partnership with Trane Technologies offers interactive tools and resources to engage and inspire students to learn, think, and solve the world’s biggest sustainability challenges through sustainable innovation.
Data & the Environment Lesson Plans
Use data to learn about environmental justice and corporate sustainability efforts in grab-and-go digital lesson bundles from Discover Data—a data literacy initiative powered by the Nielsen Foundation in collaboration with Discovery Education and the National AfterSchool Association. Available in English and Spanish, these lesson bundles have everything educators need to seamlessly incorporate data into their curriculum.
Users of Discovery Education’s K-12 platform can discover all this content and more on the Earth Day channel. In addition, Discovery Education’s users can integrate these resources directly into the real-time assessments through the platform’s Quiz feature and can integrate this content into presentations with the Studio feature. Learn more about all of the flexible features of the Discovery Education platform here.
Discovery Education plans to launch the Sustainability Education Initiative (SEI) later this year. Aligned to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, SEI aims to empower more than 10 million students to take responsible action for economic viability and environmental integrity by 2030. Subaru of America, Inc. and the National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF) are founding partners of this initiative. The initial content, currently in development, will focus on the unique environmental challenges of students in urban areas, based on feedback from the community in Subaru of America’s hometown of Camden, NJ.
“The planet is an endless source of wonder and inspiration for classroom instruction. This Earth Day, with Discovery Education resources in hand, educators can inspire students to discover the importance of protecting our environment,” said Kelli Campbell, President of Discovery Education.
For more information about Discovery Education’s award-winning digital resources—which can be purchased with federal stimulus funds—and professional learning services, visit www.discoveryeducation.com, and stay connected with Discovery Education on social media through Twitter and LinkedIn.
