As school curriculums focus increasingly on environmental issues and climate change, the need for both basic and detailed childrens’ global warming resources, facts and figures increases. We have consequently researched a handful of websites to assist with school homework, projects or general education, to act as a starting point for kids to learn about global warming and other environmental issues affecting the earth. Many of the pages have further links to assist with research.
Some sites for younger children include free printable global warming colouring pictures and images to help teach the importance of sustainability and there are a variety of free kids’ games too plus some environmental quizzes to test their knowledge. Older children can make use of more advanced sites that describe issues surrounding CO2, methane and other greenhouse gases.
The United States’ E.P.A. have a kids’ Climate Change section that clearly explains what global warming is, the greenhouse effect and how there’s been an increase in the Earth’s average temperature. This is a great source of information for a school project or homework and provides a handy teaching resource to help kids learn about global warming. Their PDF format printable sheets include educational information, quizzes, crosswords, word searches and fun informative games. In the Teachers’ Area there’s detailed factsheets on starting a ‘Planet Protectors Club’ including Membership Badges, a Certificate of Achievement and a colourful calendar of activities for monthly projects.
There’s just one helpful page at this ‘educational venue’ called Carbon for Kids but it has enough pictures, photographs and movies to clearly demonstrate the problems of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. Useful additions to an environmentally themed lesson plan or research project.
The Eden Project is an educational charity that aims to connect us humans with our environment in the hope that we can learn to treat it with a little more respect. The Eden Project visitor centre is in the UK (Cornwall) and is most famous for its giant biomes that house some of the largest rainforests in captivity. From their homepage choose ‘Learn’ and then dig in to their facts, figures, quizzes and printables about global warming and the state of our planet. How do rainforests regulate the Earth’s climate? How is climate change affecting our beautiful and diverse rainforests? They’ll explain with the help of videos, graphics, photos, posters and much much more …
The World Wide Fund for Nature have a colourful and informative website with plenty of facts and figures to help kids understand about global warming and our changing climate. From their homepage choose ‘Learn’ then ‘Climate Change’ to explore their educational resources. In WWF’s words “We’re facing the biggest environmental challenge our species has ever seen. No matter what we’re passionate about, something we care about will be affected by climate change”. Naturally there is significant emphasis on how animals and their habitats will be affected and the short term and long term consequences.
If you’re looking for a printable activity book then Discover Your Changing World With NOAA is a great choice. It’s for teenagers and comprises over 50 pages of educational text, projects, experiments, printable activities, quizzes and tests in PDF format. There’s tonnes to do in this activity book including making a solar cooker or extinction polyhedron, playing the ‘carbon journey’ game, making your own greenhouse effect or even making your own weather station.
Younger children will enjoy NASA’s Climate Kids website which is a cheerful and colourful resource with nice simple choices, icons and information. Choose to learn about ‘Weather and Climate’, Atmosphere’, ‘Water’, ‘Energy’ or ‘Plants and Animals … or maybe just go for the Big Questions like ‘Why is carbon important?’ and ‘What is climate change?’. There are a collection of on-line interactive games to play like ‘Wild Weather Adventure’ and ‘Power Up’ … you can also meet the greenhouse gases in human (and dog) form.