Earth Day is a fantastic time to teach our kids about environmental issues like climate change. These earth day facts for kids are a great starting point for your Earth Day celebrations with kids. I’ve included some book and activity ideas towards the end of the post. These are perfect if you want to extend your Earth Day fun and learning. Find more seasonal activities for kids here.
It is so important that we teach our kids about environmental protection from a young age. Kids that love being outdoors and in nature will hopefully naturally grow up wanting to help in the fight against global warming.
10 Earth Day Facts for Kids
These interesting facts are a great place to start your Earth Day learning. They teach kids about the history of earth day.
- Earth Day is an annual event that takes place on April 22nd.
- The first official earth day was celebrated in 1970.
- It is now a global movement and is observed in more than 192 countries.
- It started in the United States when Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, proposed it as a way of increasing public awareness about the environment and protecting it from further destruction.
- The first Earth Day led to 20 million Americans taking part in various environmental activities, including cleaning up beaches and parks, planting trees, and boycotting polluting companies.
- Earth Day is a day for people to come together and take action to protect the Earth. It’s a day for people to think about how their daily decisions affect the environment.
- In 2009, the United Nations named the event International Mother Earth Day.
- It’s now a global event with about 1 billion people taking part each year worldwide.
- The creation of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the endangered species act are all considered to be associated with the first Earth Day.
- In 2020, we celebrated 50 years of Earth Day.
Download my free printable earth day facts for kids poster below. It also includes an Earth Day word search which your kids will love. Use it as a starting point for your celebration of earth day.
You could also combine this activity with earth day handwriting practice. Perfect for including earth day into your school day or home learning.
How can you join in the celebrations?
Everyone can join the environmental movement to help protect our beautiful planet. You might find some local events like beach cleans to join in with. If not you can enjoy some earth day projects or even an earth day craft.
Find lots of ideas for earth day activities for kids here – Earth day activities for kids
Find more Earth Day worksheets for kids here.
If you are looking for ideas for younger children, find loads of ideas for earth day activities for toddlers here. You’ll find fun activities like sensory play and art projects too.
As well as crafts and stem projects, it’s great to teach children about how we can each make a difference. There are so many small changes that we can make in our daily lives that all add up.
We don’t need a few people doing zero waste living perfectly, we need lots of people making changes that they can sustain.
Here are some ideas to get you started –
- Take reusable bags with you when you go shopping so that you don’t need any more plastic bags. This will help to reduce plastic pollution.
- Recycle as much as you can.
- Start a compost heap.
- Reduce single-use plastic bottles by taking a water bottle with you and switching to solid shampoo and soap (instead of liquid hand soap and shower gel).
- Do a litter pick on your next walk. This is a great way of cleaning up our countryside and beaches and taking care of the earth.
- Grow some of your own fruit and vegetables.
- Try to eat as much seasonal food that is locally grown.
- Reduce the amount of meat you eat.
If you want to continue your learning on environmental concerns, take a look at my earth day books for kids post – Earth day children’s books.
Still, want to know more about Earth Day? head over to the official website.
More Earth Day for kids resources – Ad my product
I’ve done the searching for you and found some great resources to use with kids this earth day.
I created a 3 week kids activity pack that is perfect for Earth day. It includes lots of activities, puzzles and resources to teach children about environmental concerns like saving our bees, oceans and forests. Find out more about it here and get 25% off until Earth day.
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