On April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day inspired millions of people from all walks of life to come together to protect and celebrate our Earth. This April—53 years later—Earth Day still stands as one of the most widely observed secular holidays across the planet.

To celebrate Earth Day, we’re focusing our attention on issues like climate change, green technology, and environmental justice, which are all critical for maintaining healthy, sustainable life on Earth. Even though we should aim to examine, discuss, and advance these topics year-round, we’re still excited to celebrate Earth Day 2023 this week with the global community.

With that goal in mind, we’ve curated a collection of free LabXchange resources (below) to supplement the Earth Day lesson plans or school projects that you may be working on this week. We hope you find them useful!

Earth Day Resources

Learning Pathways

Pathways are collections of learning materials, such as texts, videos, and simulations, that are designed to introduce a topic to students. Explore a handful of pathways relevant to Earth Day:

• Ecology: How do living things interact with each other? This pathways explores biodiversity and mankind’s impact on the environment, as well as core concepts such as the Greenhouse Effect and the flow of matter through an ecosystem.
• Conservation Biology: This series of texts covers topics in conservation biology and biodiversity, ranging from speciation and extinction to human threats to biodiversity.
• Photosynthesis and Cellular Respiration: An introduction to cellular metabolism, including a comparison of the processes of photosynthesis and cellular respiration.
• Energy in Cells: Explore how cells harvest energy using cellular respiration in eukaryotic cells and photosynthesis in plant cells.
• Biodiversity & Relationship: Learn how structural and molecular evidence can be used to determine relationships between plant species.

Teaching Guides from the California Academy of Sciences

These popular educational case studies combine a video with vocabulary and guiding questions for classroom discussion. Topics include:

• Exploring Energy: Renewable Energy and Clean Tech Solutions
• Healthy Oceans: Coral Reefs and Climate Change
• Flipside Science: The Climate Is Changing, but How’s the Weather?
• Flipside Science: Bugs for Breakfast
• Food Land Use: Vertical Farming

Plus, check out their new Biodiversity Course cluster, which examines the concept of biodiversity and our role within it, including why it's important, how to study it, and how we can protect it.

Educational Videos

Many of our content collaborators produce wonderful videos that are especially relevant to Earth Day. Here are just a few highlights:

• Visibility in STEM: Learn about sustainable oyster farming and the use of plants for healing in Native and Black culture in America.
• Science IRL: Observe the effects of climate change on trees.
• SDG Academy: See rising sea level projections over the next 100 years.
• Minute Earth: Discover what makes plastics so difficult to get rid of.

We hope that this collection of resources inspires you to kickstart Earth Day celebrations in your classroom and beyond! Earth Day presents the perfect opportunity to engage students with the idea of working together, globally, toward a brighter future for our planet. Happy Earth Day 2023!

Create Your Own Earth Day Pathway

Didn’t find exactly what you’re looking for? You can also use LabXchange to upload your own materials, remix them into a pathway, and share them with your students, classmates, and mentors. Just create an account and get started!