Earth day is April 22, 2020 and this year is an extra special celebration. This year marks the 50th annual Earth Day! While hopefully you take the time throughout the year to appreciate our amazing planet, Earth Day is an opportunity to take action (either big or small) to change our world for the better. Unfortunately, due to all of the safety measures surrounding COVID-19, we cannot celebrate Earth Day with our friends or classes at school. But this shouldn’t stop you from having some fun this Wednesday to celebrate our amazing planet! Check out some of these Earth Day STEM activities you can do from home.
Build Projects
Prefer to build things with your hands? See what materials you have at home to create Earth Day projects, you don’t need to buy anything new! Try designing an e-waste bin for your classroom. This can get you excited about finally getting to go back to school and do something good for the planet. Currently, less than 15% of e-waste is properly recycled, yet it also makes up 70% of toxic waste in landfills. Hopefully, schools will open up soon (when it is safe to do so) and you can help your school community recycle their e-waste properly!
Or, you could build an eco-friendly city model. You could use lego or recycled materials (or maybe both!). What are some innovative solutions that can make a city amazing for people to live in and be sustainable?
Design a prototype to provide access to clean water to communities that need it. Check out Kaitlyn’s submission as part of our #Design2030 challenge
Recycle! Learn how to make your own paper out of recycled materials, or use recycled magazines and newspapers to make blackout poetry
Spring is coming, now is the perfect time to start sprouting some veggies at home! Many vegetables can be grown in a pot and on a window sill. You do not need a big yard in order to have plants. The best part is, after your hard work you get to enjoy a yummy snack from what you have grown! No seeds? You can grow some veggies from cuttings like lettuce, celery, or green onions!
Tech Projects
Take this quiz to measure your environmental footprint on the world and see what you can do to make it a bit smaller!
Another good place to start is NASA’s website. Who doesn’t love space? Check out this video to learn about what NASA does for the planet. When you are done, go on NASA’s Earth Day at Home Webquest!
Design a video game that teaches people about climate change. You could use Scratch, FlowLab or any other video game design software!
There is an island of trash in the ocean that is bigger than the size of Texas! This is a huge problem that requires innovative tech solutions to solve. Boyan Slat was 16 when he came up with his idea to solve the problem of ocean plastic, and 6 years later the Ocean Cleanup Project is getting ready to launch! Come up with your own solution to the problem of ocean plastic, you can either create a website for your solution or prototype for your idea on www.tinkercad.com.
There are our suggestions for STEM Earth Day activities that you can do from home. Even though we are physically distanced from each other, you can still take time to appreciate our wonderful planet and design solutions for a better future as a family. Even if it is just from home!