Curriculum - Elementary & Middle School

NEW! Explore Your Environment: K-8 Activity Guide

PLT’s new flagship curriculum Explore Your Environment: K-8 Activity Guide includes 50 hands-on, multidisciplinary activities to connect children to nature and increase young people’s awareness and knowledge about their environment. Activities include detailed step-by-step instructions, academic correlations, time and material requirements, and corresponding student worksheets with green career connections. This supplementary curriculum is designed to develop students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Purchase this guide (available in print or as an e-book) from PLT's Shop or attend a professional development training in Florida.

PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide

Ninety-six multi-disciplinary activities can be found inside PLT’s PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide – each one tailored to specific grade levels and learning objectives.  Each activity is filled with opportunities to build critical thinking skills, incorporate technology, and use differentiated instruction.

Activities in the PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide are correlated to the Next Generation Sunshine State Standards for Science and Social Studies and Florida Standards for Language Arts and Mathematics. Visit the Standards Correlations page for more information. 

To receive the PreK-8 Guide Environmental Education Activity Guide, attend a Project Learning Tree professional development training (click here to view the Florida professional development training calendar) or sign up for an online course that can be completed in your own time, wherever you are.

Grades K-2: 
Sensational Trees

Sensational Trees is a downloadable resource for educators of students in grades K-2 that uses sensory exploration to understand objects, spaces, people and interactions. 

Three hands-on activities connect children to nature in the city and the outdoors while integrating core discipline areas, including STEM subjects, reading, writing, and social studies. Students learn to investigate trees and develop a greater appreciation for their local environment. The activities can be used as individual, stand-alone lessons, or all together as a cohesive unit of instruction using a storyline technique. 

Purchase this activity collection from Shop.PLT.org.

Grades K-2:
E-Unit – Treemendous Science!

PLT’s Treemendous Science! e-unit is an invitation to increase the quantity and quality of your K-2 learners’ contact with nature and trees. With Treemendous Science!, students will experience, explore, and collect tree data to develop understandings about how trees grow, the roles trees play in ecosystems, and the ways in which trees and humans interact. 

To receive the Treemendous Science! e-unit, attend a Project Learning Tree professional development training (click here to view the Florida professional development training calendar) or purchase the e-unit with accompanying online professional development from shop.plt.org.

Grades 3-5: 
Biodiversity Blitz

Biodiversity Blitz is a downloadable resource for educators of students in grades 3-5.  It  invites learners to investigate variability among species in an ecosystem, and how this variability – or biodiversity – helps sustain life on Earth. 

Three hands-on activities, with an emphasis on science, English language arts, math and social studies, engage students in learning about why biodiversity is one of the most important indicators of an ecosystem’s health, and how greater biodiversity means a greater ability to cope with change.

Purchase this activity collection from Shop.PLT.org. 

Grades 3-5:
E-Unit – Energy in Ecosystems

With PLT’s Energy in Ecosystems e-unit students focus on forests (one of the largest and most complex types of ecosystems) and come to understand some of the interactions present in all ecosystems. In doing so, they learn to appreciate the natural systems on which we depend and begin to widen their circle of compassion to include all of nature.

To receive the Energy in Ecosystems e-unit, attend a Project Learning Tree professional development training (click here to view the Florida professional development training calendar) or purchase the e-unit with accompanying online professional development from shop.plt.org.

Grades 6-8: 
Discover Your Urban Forest

Discover Your Urban Forest is a downloadable resource for educators of students in grades 6-8 that invites learners to explore their urban environment and investigate environmental issues that affect their urban community.

Three hands-on activities, with an emphasis on science and social studies, engage students in learning about the place they live and how we depend on natural systems to sustain us. Students learn to value diverse perspectives about different landscapes whether it is a city sidewalk, an urban forest, or a community park. The activities can be used as individual, stand-alone lessons, or all together as a cohesive unit of instruction using a storyline technique. Purchase this activity collection from Shop.PLT.org.

Grades 6-8: 
Nature of Fire

Nature of Fire is a downloadable resource for educators of students in the grades 6-8 that invites students to investigate wildland fire and ecosystem change. Three hands-on activities, that integrates core discipline areas, including STEM subjects, reading, writing, and social studies. Students learn about the three elements that a fire needs to burn and find out how this “fire triangle” can be used to prevent and manage wildland fires and graph changes in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) over the course of several decades to explore the relationship among CO2, the Earth’s climate, and wildfires, and suggest
ways to reduce negative effects of fire

Purchase this activity collection from Shop.PLT.org. 

Grades 6-8:
E-Unit – Carbon & Climate

Perhaps more than any other environmental issue, the topic of climate change challenges science teachers to accurately convey data, reveal assumptions, and engage critical-thinking skills. Project Learning Tree’s Carbon & Climate e-unit provides activities and resources to help educators meet these challenges, introducing, and educating students to some of the complex issues involved in climate change.

To get the Carbon & Climate e-unit, attend a Project Learning Tree professional development training (click here to view the Florida professional development training calendar) or purchase the e-unit with accompanying online professional development from shop.plt.org.

Grades 6-12:
Teaching with i-Tree

PLT’s Teaching with i-Tree unit, designed for use with middle and high school students, includes three hands-on activities that engage students in discovering and analyzing the many ecosystem services that trees provide. Students use the free, online i-Tree Design software – developed by the U.S. Forest Service – to calculate the dollar value of the benefits provided by a tree or a set of trees. 

The activities can be used in formal classroom settings or with nonformal groups, such as scouts, students enrolled in afterschool programs, and visitors to nature centers and parks. They require minimal preparation and supplies, and work in urban, suburban, or rural settings. Download Teaching with i-Tree.

Grades 6-16:
Green Jobs: Exploring Forest Careers

Help youth discover careers in sustainable forestry and conservation! Green Jobs: Exploring Forest Careers includes four hands-on instructional activities to help youth research forestry jobs, and practice managing and monitoring forest resources. It is designed for educators, career and guidance counselors, Scouts, 4-H, and FFA leaders, foresters, and job training advisors to use with learners aged 12–25.

To receive Green Jobs: Exploring Forest Careers, purchase a copy at shop.PLT.org. 

Energy & Society

Project Learning Tree’s Energy & Society kit offers K-8 students opportunities to learn about their relationship with energy. The activities develop students’ critical thinking skills to help them make decisions about their personal energy use. In addition to hands-on activities, this curriculum integrates music and dance to enhance the study of energy issues. 

To get Energy & Society, attend a Project Learning Tree professional development training (click here to view the Florida professional development training calendar).

GreenSchools

Engage students in STEM as they investigate their school site, energy use, water, waste and recycling practices. Five investigations empower students to make their schools green and healthy.

Register to access each investigation online, or purchase a print copy of the complete set. Attend an online GreenSchools training for tips on starting a program at your school, how to obtain equipment, collect data, etc.

Urban Forests

The vast majority of Florida teachers and youth live in urban forests. While some of the PLT activities are well suited for use in urban areas, few of them convey the many benefits of urban forests to city residents. This is a companion document for educators who have the PLT PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide. This supplement helps youth see their community's urban forests as significant, valuable, and worth sustaining. It is based on three themes: urban forest ecology, benefits of an urban forest, and strategies for improving urban forest health.

This 79-page document provides educators with background information and identifies 28 PLT activities that already work well in urban areas; 19 PLT activities that can be adapted with suggestions to be more applicable to an urban space; 6 urban forest extensions to existing PLT activities; and 6 new urban forest activities. A committee of natural resource professionals and educators reviewed this document for factual and educational accuracy.

Click here to access the supplement.