Every-day Earth Day: Introducing Sustainability to Young Children

Earth Day’s approach inspires thoughts and conversations about the environment and sustainability. These are great topics to introduce to the toddlers and preschoolers in your care, because they build on children’s curiosity about nature while also tapping into their enthusiasm for helping with chores! Talking with children about how their actions can positively affect their environment helps them to feel empowered and capable.

In this article, we share some conversation-starters and activities that you can use to introduce the topic of sustainability into your classroom or program.

Starting the Conversation: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Introducing sustainability to young children can start with the simple saying:  “Reduce, reuse, recycle.” Break down each word of the saying into kid-friendly language to help young children understand what they mean. 

• Reduce = “to use less,” such as when we’re washing our hands. We want to be careful about how long we let the water run!
• Reuse = “to use again and again,” like our clothes. When we grow and our clothes get too small for us, we can give them to a friend or younger sibling who can use them again!
• Recycle = “to make something new,” such as our water bottles. Rather than throwing our water bottles in the trash, we can put them in the recycling bin so that they can be remade into new items, like new food and drink containers and even some types of clothes and toys! 

Here are some free printables that you can use to help children understand the difference between reducing, reusing, and recycling.   When children understand that their actions impact the environment, they learn to be thoughtful about the materials they use and to feel good about helping keep their community healthy.

Ideas for Your Classroom or Program

Here are a few simple ways to incorporate learning about sustainability into your curriculum: 

• Model sustainable behavior. Young children tend to observe what we do and then follow our lead. We can show them how to practice sustainability by setting up recycling bins in the classroom and then demonstrating the way to place the right items in each bin. Sorting your classroom’s recycling by plastics, paper, and metal is also an opportunity for young children to practice early math skills, including categorization and pattern-matching.
• Reuse materials in your classroom. Recycled items such as toilet paper rolls, cardboard scraps, bottle caps, and empty jars, can be reused in your classroom for art projects,  loose parts, supply containers, and more! Check your classroom recycling bin for materials that you might be able to reuse. This helps children to see how materials can be used in sustainable ways, rather than being thrown away after a single use.
• Read books to children that demonstrate sustainability.  Reading stories to children is always a great way to introduce them to new topics.   Here are a few children’s books that explain or tell stories about sustainability: 
  • Don’t Throw That Away! A Lift-the-Flap Book about Recycling and Reusing by Lara Bergen
  • Recycling is Fun by Charles Ghigna 
  • The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
  • Charlie and Lola: We Are Extremely Very Good Recyclers by Lauren Child 
  • 10 Things I Can Do to Help My World by Melanie Walsh

• Get outside! Spending time outdoors helps children to feel connected to the environment and to appreciate all that nature has to offer. While you’re playing outdoors, talk with children about the different plants and animals living in the environment around them. Recognizing that Earth is a shared space can inspire children’s interest in protecting nature.
• Recycling trucks are fascinating! Young children love looking at the garbage and recycling trucks when they come to visit.  Not only are these visits fun, but they also offer an engaging, real-time learning opportunity. As they watch the truck pick up items for recycling, talk with the children in your care about the recycling truck and how it takes our trash to be reused and made into new items. 

Activity Ideas

Newspaper Art

This activity requires only a few items and is easy to set up in your classroom. Using old newspapers, encourage children to cut them into smaller pieces to glue onto construction paper. Then, the final step is to paint!  If you’d like, you can offer the children additional recycled materials like cardboard scraps, tissue papers and straws, which they can paste onto their art. 

This project gives young children first-hand experience in reusing recycled materials. While they are painting, talk with children about the life of the newspaper and how this item that was going to be thrown away has now become lovely works of art!

Recycled Paper