🌱 Care for the Earth

You live here too.

Explore the plants, animals, water, soil, weather, and tiny living things that keep our planet working.

Then go outside and see what you can discover ↓

🌎 How Does an Ecosystem Work?

Nature is a giant team.

Plants, animals, fungi, insects, water, soil, sunlight, and microorganisms depend on one another.

🦁 National Geographic Kids — Animals & Nature

https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals

🌱 TRY IT: Go outside and find:

🌿 One plant
🐜 One insect
🐦 One animal
💧 One source of water
☀️ One source of energy

💭 THINK: What might happen if one part disappeared?

🐝 Why Do Pollinators Matter?

Some of the smallest animals do some of the biggest jobs.

Bees, butterflies, moths, birds, bats, and other animals help plants reproduce by moving pollen between flowers.

🐝 U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service — Pollinators

https://www.fws.gov/initiative/pollinators

🌼 TRY IT: Find a flowering plant and watch it quietly for five minutes.

Who visits?

🐝 Bee?
🦋 Butterfly?
🐞 Beetle?
🐦 Bird?

💭 THINK: How many foods you eat depend on plants?

🌱 Grow Something You Can Eat

Food can start with one tiny seed.

You don't need a farm—or even a backyard—to grow something.

🌿 KidsGardening — Garden Activities & Resources

https://kidsgardening.org/resources/

🌱 TRY IT: Start with something small.

🌿 Herbs
🥬 Lettuce
🌱 Green onions
🍅 Tomatoes
🫘 Beans

Keep track of what changes each week.

💭 THINK: What does a plant need that you don't have to buy?

🍂 What Is Compost?

Yesterday's scraps can become tomorrow's soil.

Instead of sending some food and yard waste to a landfill, composting allows organic material to break down into material that can help build healthier soil.

♻️ EPA — Composting at Home

https://www.epa.gov/recycle/composting-home

🌱 TRY IT: Look at today's food scraps.

Could any of them be composted?

🍌 Fruit scraps
🥕 Vegetable scraps
☕ Coffee grounds
🥚 Eggshells

💭 THINK: What if food waste could help grow more food?

💧 Protect Our Water

What happens on land can end up in water.

Rain can carry litter, chemicals, soil, oil, and other pollution into storm drains, streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans.

🌊 NOAA — Ocean Pollution & Marine Debris

https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/ocean-coasts/ocean-pollution

🌱 TRY IT: Look around your neighborhood after it rains.

Where does the water travel?

💭 THINK: If something falls into the street, could it eventually reach a river?

🌳 Why Do Cities Need Trees?

Trees do a lot more than look pretty.

Trees can provide shade, habitat, cleaner air, stormwater benefits, and cooler places for people to live and play.

🌳 Arbor Day Foundation — Kids

https://www.arborday.org/kids

🌡️ TRY IT: On a sunny day, compare:

☀️ Pavement in the sun
🌳 Pavement under a tree
🌱 Grass

Which feels hottest?

💭 THINK: Who might be affected most by a neighborhood without much shade?

🌡️ Why Is the Planet Getting Warmer?

Earth has always had a greenhouse effect. Humans are strengthening it.

Burning fossil fuels and other human activities add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, causing Earth's average temperature to rise.

🚀 NASA Climate Kids

https://climatekids.nasa.gov/

🌎 TRY IT: Explore NASA Climate Kids and find one way climate change can affect something you care about.

Animals? 🐻
Oceans? 🌊
Weather? ⛈️
Food? 🌽
Forests? 🌲

💭 THINK: What can communities change together that would be difficult for one person to change alone?

🐦 Become a Community Scientist

You don't have to work in a laboratory to help scientists.

People around the world collect observations that researchers can use to study plants, animals, weather, and ecosystems.

🐦 Cornell Lab of Ornithology — eBird

https://ebird.org/home

🌿 iNaturalist

https://www.inaturalist.org/

🔎 TRY IT: Find three living things outside.

Can you identify them?

💭 THINK: Why might scientists need observations from thousands of regular people?

🦋 Make Space for Wildlife

Your neighborhood is somebody else's habitat too.

Backyards, balconies, schoolyards, parks, and community gardens can provide food, water, shelter, and places for wildlife to raise young.

🦋 National Wildlife Federation — Garden for Wildlife

https://www.nwf.org/Garden-for-Wildlife

🌱 TRY IT: Look outside.

Can you find:

💧 Water
🌼 Food
🌳 Shelter
🐦 A place an animal could safely rest?

What's missing?

🌼 Plant for Your Place

Plants have hometowns too.

Native plants evolved alongside the wildlife and environmental conditions of particular regions.

🌿 National Wildlife Federation — Native Plant Finder

https://nativeplantfinder.nwf.org/

🌱 TRY IT: Find one plant native to where you live.

Then discover:

🐝 Who uses it?
🌼 When does it bloom?
☀️ Does it like sun or shade?

💭 THINK: What would happen if every neighborhood made a little more room for native plants?

🔎 The Tiny Earth Challenge

Choose one tiny piece of nature near you.

🌳 A tree
🌼 A flower patch
🪨 The ground beneath a rock
💧 A creek
🌱 A garden bed

Visit it more than once.

👀 What lives there?

🌦️ What changes?

🐛 Who visits?

💧 Where does its water come from?

🧑 How do people affect it?

You don't have to travel to a national park to discover an ecosystem.

Nature is happening right outside your door.

🌎 Keep Exploring

NASA Climate Kids