Curriculum - Elementary & Middle School

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.

Get your copy of the Explore Your Environment: K-8 Activity Guide (available in print or as an e-book) from PLT's Shop or attend a Project Learning Tree professional development training in Florida.

PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide

The PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide contains 96 multi-disciplinary activities, each one tailored to specific grade levels and learning objectives. Topics include forests, wildlife, water, air, energy, waste, climate change, invasive species, community planning, and more. Each activity is filled with opportunities to build critical thinking skills, incorporate technology, and use differentiated instruction. The materials provide educators the tools they need to bring the environment into their classrooms — and their students into the environment.

Get your copy of the PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide from PLT's Shop or attend a Project Learning Tree professional development training in Florida.

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. 

Get your copy of the Sensational Trees activity collection from PLT's Shop.

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. 

Get your copy of the Treemendous Science! e-unit from PLT's Shop or attend a Project Learning Tree professional development training in Florida.

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.

Get your copy of the Biodiversity Blitz activity collection from PLT's Shop. 

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.

Get your copy of the Energy in Ecosystems e-unit from PLT's Shop or attend a Project Learning Tree professional development training in Florida.

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. 

Get your copy of the Discover Your Urban Forest activity collection from PLT's Shop.

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

Get your copy of the Nature of Fire activity collection from PLT's Shop. 

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.

Get your copy of the Carbon & Climate e-unit from PLT's Shop or attend a Project Learning Tree professional development training in Florida.

Energy & Society

PLT’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. 

Get your copy of the Energy & Society kit from PLT's Shop or attend a Project Learning Tree professional development training in Florida.

Grades 6-12:

Teaching with i-Tree

PLT’s free 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.

GreenSchools

PLT's GreenSchools Investigations engages 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.

Get your print copy of the complete set pf GreenSchools Investigations, including the Adult Leader Guide from PLT's Shop or download each individual investigation for free here.

Grades 6-16:

Green Jobs: Exploring Forest Careers

Help youth discover careers in sustainable forestry and conservation! PLT's Green Jobs: Exploring Forest Careers guide 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.

Get your copy of the Green Jobs: Exploring Forest Careers guide (available in print or as an e-book) from PLT's Shop or attend a Project Learning Tree professional development training in Florida.