Classroom Earth Day Bulletin Board Ideas Elementary School

Get ready for Earth Day in your upper elementary classroom with these simple bulletin board ideas that will encourage and motivate your students to be kind to planet Earth!

Creating an Earth Day bulletin board display is an easy way to get your upper elementary classroom ready for spring and Earth Day while reinforcing the important message of caring for our planet.

A motivational Earth Day bulletin board display can add a dash of décor to your upper elementary classroom and has many other benefits.

Why should I have an Earth Day bulletin board in my classroom?

✔ Encourages Environmental Responsibility – Seeing daily reminders about being kind to the Earth helps students develop a mindset of conservation and sustainability. As students learn about human impact on the environment, this display will encourage them to care for the planet. 

✔ Creates a Kind Classroom Atmosphere – You know I love kindness in the classroom! It is always a focus each month. I love to display different kindness bulletin boards and have different kindness challenges going each month. Having a bright and uplifting bulletin board supports your kind community and a shared responsibility for protecting our planet. 

✔ Sparks Meaningful Discourse – Thought-provoking phrases and visuals can lead to class discussions about ways to reduce waste, recycle, and care for the environment. 

How can I create a meaningful Earth Day bulletin board in my classroom?

If you are just getting started with creating a classroom Earth Day bulletin board display, decide which type of bulletin board you want to create. You can create a motivational bulletin board with quotes and tips for Earth Day or a student-centered bulletin board with Earth Day student work as the focus. 

These Earth Day bulletin board ideas will help you plan, hang, and display the perfect Earth Day bulletin board!

1. Earth Day Kindness Posters - Be Kind to Planet Earth

This all-in-one Earth Day bulletin board kit makes it easy to hang a bulletin board and encourage others in just minutes! It includes 12 posters, banners, bulletin board letters, accent pieces, borders, and more! 

If you know me, you know that I love to bring kindness into the classroom with each chance I get! I display a kindness bulletin board with a different theme each season. This Be Kind to Planet Earth bulletin board is a great way to tie kindness into caring for our planet during spring and Earth Week. After we discuss the posters in this set, we begin our Be Kind to Planet Earth challenge. We track the amazing, kind deeds we do each day to help us care for our planet.

2. Dear Mother Earth - Student Writing Project

This student-focused Earth Day bulletin board encourages students to reflect on how they should be treating our planet, Mother Earth. You will want to do this fun and meaningful writing activity with your students year after year! To practice friendly letter writing, have kids write a letter to Mother Earth, sharing how they help care for her. Encourage them to include specific examples from their lives and add colorful illustrations.

 

Grab the free writing page!

3. Stop Pollution - Persuasive Project

This is my favorite writing project of the year! The students' persuasive writing pieces about pollution and human impact on the environment are amazing, so why not hang them and display them on your Earth Day bulletin board?

This engaging pollution persuasivewriting project is perfect for upper elementary students and doubles as a high interest writing project and bulletin board display. With the included nonfiction passages on land, water, and air pollution, students will build background knowledge before beginning an age-appropriate step-by-step persuasive writing piece to convince others to stop pollution. 

4. Great Garbage Challenge - Science Activity

Hands down, this science project for Earth Day is a crowd pleaser! 

The idea is simple - take a piece of garbage and transform it into something new and useful. I like to have students work in groups of 2-3 to encourage brainstorming and creativity. To kick things off, I bring in a bag of carefully chosen "garbage" and spread the items out on a table. Each group discusses and agrees on one item to repurpose, then takes turns selecting their piece. Using classroom supplies, they work together to give their item a creative makeover. When they are finished, groups present their creations to the class. For a fun twist, invite your  teacher friend from next door to judge the most creative project - students love the challenge, and their scientific workmakes a great display!

Creating an Earth Day bulletin board is such a simple yet powerful way to inspire your students to be kind to our planet! Whether you go with motivational quotes, student work, or an interactive display, your bulletin board will serve as a daily reminder that small actions can make a big difference. Plus, it adds a fun and meaningful touch to your classroom for spring! So, grab your supplies, get creative, and celebrate Earth Day with a bulletin board that encourages kindness to the Earth this April!

You will also love to read:

Coloring Activities and Tips for Upper Elementary

6 Picture Books to Celebrate Women's History Month

3 Must-Try Tips for Your Next Biography Project

Earth Day Videos for Upper Elementary

7 Simple Ideas for to Celebrate Earth Day

   Save time, grab the Earth Day Bulletin Board Kit!

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*affiliate links: “Think Grow Giggle is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.” (source: Section 5)

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8 Earth Day Picture Books for Upper Elementary

One of my favorite topics of spring to teach is Earth Day! I love spreading the message to my students, that YES they CAN make a difference in keeping our planet safe and healthy, and so can your students!

When April comes around, I get so excited to dive all the way in to all things Earth Day, endangered species, pollution, and rainforests. No better way to learn about our planet, find ways to help protect it and see its beauty than with amazing picture books.

This list includes my favorite books to share with students during our Earth Day unit. It includes a wide range of books, from nonfiction titles to stories, and even biographies. Be sure to grab the free print and digital student activities that coordinate with these picture books at the bottom of this post.

Oil written by Jonah Winter

If you love reading picture books about real-world events, this one is for you! This book is an extremely powerful telling of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Your students will be on the edge of their seats as they listen to the story and explore each beautifully illustrated page. This book truly shows how one accident can cause problems that last forever. The author's note at the end is just as powerful as the book itself. Since its release, this book has become a staple in my Earth Day book collection.

Magic Trash written by JH Shapiro

This book just made its way to my classroom library and I could not be happier! This book tells the true story of the painter and sculptor Tyree Guyton and the amazing art that he makes all inspired by his grandfather who told him to paint the world.  He used his talents to beautify his neighborhood and create community art. I love that this book sends the message to kids that you can turn trash into something beautiful! And bonus it aligns completely to my favorite Earth Day activity: The Great Garbage Challenge!

You are Home written by Evan Turk

You are Home is a beautifully illustrated picture book that tells about our country's National Parks. This book truly celebrates nature and National Parks in a fun way, with open-out pages and a large map in the back that shows which state each of the parks mentioned is located. Your students will ask you to reread this book over and over!

Marjory Saves the Everglades written by Sandra Neil Wallace

Marjory Saves the Everglades is an interesting nonfiction picture book about the life of Marjory Stoneman Douglas. She was one of the first ecologists, truly fighting to protect our planet's precious everglades.  She used her skills as a writer to educate people about saving animals and special environments on our planet. This book is the perfect example of how one person can truly make a difference! This book pairs perfectly with the book S[ring After Spring, another nonfiction picture book about Rachel Carson who inspired the Environmental Movement. Read more about this amazing picture book HERE and add it to your picture books for Earth Day, spring and biography lessons.

Recycle written by Gail Gibbons

No picture book list is complete without a book written by the amazing Gail Gibbons! This book has been a staple in my upper elementary classrooms since my first year teaching and it is still so powerful! It pairs perfectly with your lessons on Earth Day or pollution. This book walks the reader through the recycling process step by step. It includes how plastic, paper, and glass are recycled. My students always learn so much from this book and the fun facts at the end of the book are always a class favorite each year!

What You Can Do to Stop Global Warming written by Lurie David and Cambria Gordon

This one is a great reference book for you and your students. It is easy to read, super kid-friendly, and will give you and your class all of the information that you need to know about pollution, global warming, carbon footprints, solar power, how to save the planet, and more! This book is just plain fun to read! Cute cartoon illustrations and nonfiction features like lists and cutouts fill each page. Must have for any Earth Day activity!

The Great Kapok Tree written by Lynne Cherry

Rainforests studies are instant engagement activities for kids! This is one of my all-time favorite books to read any time of year, but especially during April for Earth Day! This book is all about saving our precious rainforests and lends itself perfect for your students to write persuasive writing pieces to stop pollution! This book follows the main character, a man charged with cutting down a large tree. After he falls asleep while chopping, he is visited by all of the animals that will lose their home if he continues to chop down the tree. Your students will learn many valuable lessons right along with the main character!

1000 Facts About the Earth written by Moira Butterfield

This book is perfect to add to your classroom library and Earth Day book display! Your readers will always want to borrow this book again and again as it is chock full of amazing facts, pictures, and diagrams all about our amazing planet! Plantlife, rainforests, coastlines, and How to Save the Earth are just a few of the topics explored in this book. It is a great reference book and one everyone will love!

WAIT! There's more...Bonus Book Suggestions:

We Are Water Protectors written by Carole Lindstrom

This book was just recently recommended to me and I am so excited that I was able to grab it! This powerful picture book is beautifully illustrated and brings to life the Ojibwe culture.  This book celebrates Mother Nature, Earth, and the healing power of water. When a black snake threatens to destroy Earth, a group of people comes together to stop it. I love the message this book sends, the author's note at the end, and the Water Protector Pledge included that you and your students can take together! Definitely, a must-add to your classroom library!

Michael Recycle written by Ellie Bethel

This book is part of series about keeping our planet clean. The main character is a young boy turned superhero charged with cleaning up the planet! This is a fun read and most appropriate for grade 2 and grade 3. My third graders loved this one!

An Inconvenient Truth written by Al Gore

This book is perfect for you to use as a reference to guide your Earth Day lessons. I like sharing the photographs in this book with students, as well as certain paragraphs. I do leave this book on the whiteboard ledge for students to borrow, too! 

While I love using these books during my Earth Day unit, they live in my classroom library so that students can learn about our planet every day, not just on Earth Day! Read just one of these books to your students and watch their interest in our planet grow! You and your students CAN make a difference in the health of our planet.

Happy Earth Day, teacher friends!

You might be interested in reading:

Earth Day Videos for Your Classroom

Must-Try Simple and Meaningful Earth Day Activities

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4 Earth Day Videos and Activities for Upper Elementary Classrooms

If you follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, then you know that I just LOVE to engage and motivate students by tying the seasons and holidays into my everyday lesson plans.

And when the calendar is turned to April, Earth Day is front and center in my upper elementary classroom. You can find my students knee-deep in Earth Day reading, science, and research writing activities.  I love to watch them learn so much about our planet and vow to help protect it!

No matter how you involve your students in learning about how to take care of our planet, these FREE Earth Day videos will inspire, educate, and motivate your students to learn more ways to help take care of our planet this Earth Day. And bonus...you can grab a set of note-taking graphic organizers for free at the bottom of this post, perfect to help your students take notes as they watch these educational videos. (see more hands-on Earth Day activities HERE.)

Note: As with any video, website, or resource that you bring into your classroom, be sure to preview each video before sharing with your class to make sure that they are appropriate for your cohort of students.

Read Aloud: Here Comes the Garbage Barge (11 minutes)

This picture book is a true story about a town that had so much garbage and they did not have any place to put it. The Garbage Barge tells the story about how important it is to take care of garbage correctly and teaches environmental awareness.

Happy Earth Day (17 mins long)

This video talks about Earth Day, endangered animals, how to make less garbage, what it means to reduce, reuse, and recycle and how to compost.

What Happens When You Throw Out Plastic Bottles? by TED-Ed (4 mins)

This video goes on a journey as plastic bottles are discarded in different ways and illustrates the importance of recycling plastic bottles.

National Geographic Kids: Save the Polar Bears (3 mins)

This video is one in a series that includes an overview of the species, why they are at risk of becoming extinct, and how kids can help to save animals around the world.

Other videos in the same National Geographic Series:

• Save the Elephants
• Save the Wolves

While Brainpop and Brainpop Jr are {amazing}subscription websites, they do offer free videoes of the week. 

When April begins, they usually have free videoes of the week related to Earth Day. Be sure to check their sites weekly to see what free videos they are offering that week. If you are unfamiliar with these sites, Brainpopjr is geared towards grades 1-3 and Brainpop is geared towards 4th grade and older.

Want to get your kids up, singing, dancing, and moving around? Try these super catchy music videos that will have them singing all month long!

Recycling Song

Jack Johnson Recycling Song 

No matter how you decide to bring Earth Day into your classroom, include these videoes. These websites will help engage students, too.  Have students take notes, summarize, discuss, or just enjoy the information they are learning on different ways to save our planet, help endangered species, and reduce, reuse, and recycle.

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Earth Day Activities for Upper Elementary

Earth Day is one of those holidays that I always get so excited to bring into the classroom! It is such an important topic to discuss and is highly engaging for students. Earth Day celebrates our planet and home and all the different ways that people everywhere can work together to keep our planet clean and safe.

Earth Day topics naturally lend themselves to being taught across all content areas, making learning about this holiday seamless.

Here are some of my favorite content-rich activities to do with students to celebrate Earth Day using meaningful and educational activities. 

Be sure to scoop up the FREE Earth Day writing activity at the bottom of this post.

Earth Day Read Alouds

What is a holiday without a few favorite read-aloud books? There are so many great books to share with students during the month of April and several that relate directly to Earth Day. Here are a few of my favorites and the activities that I do with each.

Miss Rumphius written by Barbara Cooney

This book is perfect for any lesson on character analysis and theme. The main character is given the task to make the world a more beautiful place, which becomes her life mission and a task she passes on to her niece. Following a reading of this book, simply provide students with a blank piece of paper and ask them to create an illustration that shows how they will make the world a more beautiful place.

The Great Kapok Tree written by Lynne Cherry

This is one of my favorite books to read anytime during the year, especially during April. This book is about saving our precious rainforests and lends itself perfectly for students to write persuasive writing pieces. (more details on this activity below).

Wartville Wizard written by JP Madden

This is an oldie but a goodie! The Wartville Wizard has the power to stick garbage to the person who threw it away. An interesting tale with valuable lessons about the 3Rs. After reading this book, students read informational passages about the 3rs (reduce, reuse and recycle).

Will We Miss Them? written by A. Wright and Can We Save Them? written by D. Dobson

Both of these books carry the same message of helping save endangered animals from extinction. They make great read alouds before, during, and after my class complete their endangered animal research projects (more details on this activity below).

Michael Recycle written by Ellie Bethel

This book is the first in a series of Earth-friendly picture books focused on how children can make changes to help protect the planet and practice using the 3Rs. With colorful illustrations and rhyming verse, the kids love listening to these stories. Following a reading of this rhyming book, I have my students create their own poems to tell how they will help protect the planet.

Earth Day Science Reading and Group Presentations

There are so many topics that students can read about related to Earth Day. The history of Earth Day, How to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, and Water Pollution and Water Conservation to name a few. 

I love to have students read Earth Day close reading passages to gather information or research different topics related to Earth Day that they find interesting Teacher Tip: Make sure each group has a different topic. Then I have students work in groups to present what they learned. After they read the materials, they discuss the key points and then create a presentation to teach the rest of the class what they learned. Students can create digital presentations or speeches to share with the class. By doing these presentations, you give students the opportunity to learn about many different topics related to Earth Day even though they just researched one. My kids love learning from each other with projects like this!


More topics your students will enjoy as you celebrate our planet:

• Pollution
• Endangered Species
• Rainforests
• National Parks
• Composting, Bees, and Arbor Day
• Spring Equinox and Water Cycle

Earth Day Songs and Videos

Get out your singing voice and get ready to belt the lyrics to a few of my favorite Earth Day songs!

1. One Sweet World (Dave Matthews Band) Grab the lyrics HERE.
2. 3Rs Song (Jack Johnson) Grab the lyrics HERE.
3. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (Numberrock)
4. Big Yellow Taxi (Counting Crows version) Grab the lyrics HERE. 

While just singing these songs and discussing their lyrics is powerful, go a step further and have students illustrate the song. You can have students create one illustration to wrap up the song, or you can have groups of students work together to create an illustration for one line of the song. Then when all students are done, compile their illustrations to create a class book that illustrates the entire song.

Get the links to all of my favorite videos to use for Earth Day instruction HERE.

Endangered Animals Research

There is no project that I look more forward to each year than this Endangered Species Project. I have my students research the endangered animals that they choose, again making sure that students pick different animals. They use multiple sources, both internet and books, to gather important information for their research project. One great science website students use for this project is the WWF (World Wildlife Foundation). It includes the most up to date list of endangered species.

After students research and write their reports they share their work with their classmates in creative ways. They can make a book, video commercial, handout or give a speech. How ever they want to share the information is just fine with me. In fact, the more creative and unique the better!

Science Project: The Great Garbage Challenge

The kids just love this science project and are always so engaged.
The concept is simple: turn a piece of garbage into something that can be used again in a different way. When I do this activity, I have students work in groups of 2-3. It helps with the brainstorming and creativity needed for this project. I bring in a large bag of garbage (items that I think can be turned into something else) and display them on a table. While the students are in their groups, they discuss which piece of garbage they would like to use for the project. All members must agree. One group at a time is called to select a piece of "garbage" from the table. Students work together to makeover the item they selected with classroom supplies. Students share their finished creations with the class when they are done. Have the teacher next door come in and vote on the most creative for an extra challenge! The kids love it!

Persuasive Writing Topics

Earth Day began with the persuasive acts of one US Senator from Wisconsin named Gaylord Nelson who urged Congress to help educate people to care for our planet. What better way to honor this man than by writing persuasive essays about Earth Day topics.

Here are a few of my favorite Earth Day topics, perfect for persuasive writing:

• Stop Pollution
• Save the Rainforest
• Celebrate Earth Day Every Day
• Start Using Solar Energy
• Why You Need to Start a Compost
• Why You Should Reduce
• Why You Should Reuse
• Why You Should Recycle

Dear Mother Earth Letter Writing

This sweet writing activity is one that you will want to do every year with your kids. To practice friendly letter writing skills, have students write letters to Mother Earth telling her how they are taking care of her. Encourage students to use specific examples from their lives and include an illustration. Bonus-this makes a great bulletin board display, too! Grab this activity for FREE at the bottom of this post.


I love watching my students' faces light up as they learn all about protecting our planet. One thing I always remind my students is that Earth Day should be celebrated every day, not just on April 22nd. With all of these lesson ideas to choose from, you can easily weave Earth Day throughout your lessons all year long. Happy Earth Day!

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*affiliate links: “Think Grow Giggle is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.” (source: Section 5)