Earth Day STEM Activities: Build Awareness And Reconnect With Our Planet

Keep it simple for Earth Day with these easy, low-prep activities that require materials you have at home or can find in nature!

Earth Day is an environmental movement that seeks to transform our world and create change toward a more sustainable and cleaner planet. It is so important for our kids to be aware of the environment and the effect that we, as humans, have on our planet. So for Earth Day I have gathered some wonderful STEM activities that can help our children connect with nature and gain environmental awareness to protect our planet. These activities are easy and can be done with materials you have at home or can find in nature.

Activities you can do on Earth Day or any day really to reconnect with Mother Earth. I invite you to be present and mindful during these activities. Most of them are pretty simple so don’t just rush through them, take your time, explore with your kids and engage in meaningful conversations about our planet.

Connect With Nature

Plant seeds with your kids. Beans or lentils are good growers and something you may have around the house. Let your kids feel the earth and water the soil. Watching how something sprouts is magical for kids. It is so exciting to see green coming out of the earth and it is the perfect opportunity to sneak in some nature talk so they can learn about plants. If you don’t have pots or want to keep up the Earth Day theme, make some pots out of recycled materials.

Learn About Pollution

Pollution is the biggest negative effect that we have on the planet. Ask your kids if they know what pollution is and where it comes from. Explore the effect of pollution and generate some environmental awareness with these activities:

Conserve Water

Teach kids about water consumption and create awareness of this precious resource. Talk about different ways you could reduce your water consumption and gain a visual understanding of how much water we use.

Understand Waste

We create so much waste! And it is difficult to be aware of this when we just throw things away to never see them again. This activity shows children what happens with our trash and teaches them the concept of biodegradation.

Practice Recycling

Stop sorting your recyclables for a few days (only dry materials like cardboard, plastic, milk or juice cartons/bottles…) and then recreate a sorting station for your household trash. Invite your kids to sort through the trash and separate into paper, plastic or glass. Perfect opportunity to talk about recycling and what can/cannot be recycled.

Make nature crafts

There are many great nature crafts out there but I love this one. It is very hands-on and looks beautiful. Find patterns in nature or around the house and transform them into art. The craft requires clay so I’ve left you a link to DIY clay as I can imagine most of you don’t have clay lying around.

If you want more of a building craft these two are also great fun and present the perfect opportunity to learn more about nature:

Build an insect hotel: Fun activity you can do with your kids. They can learn about different insects that live in your garden. You can even keep a record and work on observation skills and data collection!
Build a bird nest: Another fun project! Take a nature walk and collect materials to build a nest for birds.

Grow your own food

Growing your own food is a great way to be more sustainable. And even more so if you regrow using kitchen scraps! Why is this? Ask your kids and see if you can find some answers! Here are some great resources for this:

Turn down the electricity by avoiding some screen time

Read books, draw or paint, play a board game, build a fort, make an obstacle course, craft (collect materials and get creative), stack random objects to build a tower, solve a puzzle, do some yoga, cook or bake together, look at the sky and watch clouds or gaze at the stars, or my personal favorite, sit together, talk, think and reconnect. What does living on Earth mean for you and do you live in accordance with this?