What type of environmental lessons do you teach in your elementary classroom? Do you include Earth’s resources activities into your science plans? Since we all have a role in taking care of the Earth, I like to sprinkle lessons in often. I teach about Earth’s natural resources as part of our energy units. I also like to add in lessons around Earth Day about how humans impact the environment.
When I first began teaching about Earth’s natural resources, I couldn’t find much available. We didn’t have decent science textbooks, and there wasn’t much available on the Internet geared toward students. So what did I do? I did what most teachers have to do when they can’t find what they need I created my own unit. This unit includes all the necessary facts, while being engaging and easy to implement. Here are some of the unit highlights in case you were looking to teach about Earth’s resources too!
Earth’s Resources Lesson Plans
Having detailed lesson plans makes any unit easy to pick up and teach year after year. Even a substitute can follow along! This unit includes 10 days of engaging lessons, text, and Earth’s resources activities.
Facts about Natural Resources
Finding kid-friendly text (when you have no science books) is hard. Since I couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for, I just did the research and wrote my own fact book. It makes teaching this unit a breeze because all the content is in one handy dandy book. The 8 pages cover what are natural resources, living and nonliving resources, renewable and nonrenewable resources, using and protecting natural resources, and types of energy.
Earth’s Resources Videos
I love including videos into my lessons. Quick, kid-friendly videos with facts help to build background knowledge and teach concepts. Included in this unit are may favorite natural resources videos for kids.
Earth’s Resources Activities
After reading about Earth’s resources in the fact book, students will have many engaging activities to apply what they have learned. A variety of cut-&-paste, sorting, graphing, and drawing activities are included.
Natural Resources Project Ideas
I love to end my units with an opportunity to extend learning. Whether you open it up to your whole class or just to those students wanting to learn more, the option is there. Includes a grading rubric. This project choice board includes 9 natural resources project ideas.
You can find this entire unit, including both a print and digital version, here.
Teaching about pollution and how humans impact the environment? You will want to check out this blog post: Teaching about Pollution.
Happy teaching!
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