Earth Day is coming up on April 22. It's an exciting day, both for us and for classrooms around B.C. That’s because future generations need to think about the Earth’s ecosystems more than ever before, to reduce emissions, create more clean energy, and preserve beautiful places like we have in B.C.

Of course, local Indigenous peoples were way ahead of us in sustaining food, shelter, and community while working with ecosystems instead of against them. The question is, can we find a way to do that again while still using our complex energy grids to power thousands of devices and heat our buildings? In this post, we’ve gathered lots of great Earth Day resources to empower a generation that can, hopefully, have its cake and eat it too when it comes to using energy and caring for a beautiful world.

Exciting resources from EARTHDAY.ORG

The definitive source for Earth Day resources and updates is EARTHDAY.ORG, the hub and coordinator for initiatives around the world. This is the place to find out what’s going on for Earth Day or share your own activities for others to discover.

Map of events

EARTHDAY.ORG hosts a map of Earth Day 2026 events. This is where you can search for events planned in your area, and you can also register your own event to help spread the word for anything you’re planning.

One example of an event listed on the site is Party for the Planet, which is B.C.’s largest Earth Day celebration. This year it will take place on April 25 in Surrey.

Earth Hub Resources

The Earth Hub page is a useful index of resources for Earth Day. On it you’ll find:

• Actions to take on Earth Day and around the year
• Fact sheets and news stories to learn relevant information
• Toolkits for organizing your Earth Day activities

It’s a useful starting point to inspire helpful actions you could take as a class and tools to support you.

Our Power, Our Planet manifesto

For a second year, EARTHDAY.ORG’s theme for Earth Day is Our Power, Our Planet. The purpose of this theme, as described in the manifesto, is to emphasize that we as individuals and communities have the power to protect the environment, make changes, and keep the momentum going on things like clean energy. This power remains regardless of current political and economic challenges.

Unsurprisingly, we at Power Smart for Schools like to think of Our Power through the lens of electricity. In B.C., most of our energy comes from local hydroelectric dams and is provided by BC Hydro which is a crown corporation. This means that our energy is shaped by local interests and reports to B.C. citizens as stakeholders. Learning how our grid works and contributing your voice to its future is the best way to enact Our Power, and we are especially equipped to have a say in the future of Our Planet.

A new activity about renewable energy

To recognize Earth Day and the theme of Our Power, Our Planet, we’ve published a new activity called  Renewable energy around the globe. In the activity, students will learn about five amazing sources of renewable energy. Then they’ll do their own research to investigate power plants around the world and share with the class.

The new activity is all about connecting the natural energies of Earth, like rushing rivers and whistling wind, and how each region can harness one or more types of energy to generate electricity. We also hope this will be a chance for students to think about electricity in places they may not know as much about. For example, they’ll learn that South Korea is at the forefront of generating tidal energy, or that there are countries on every continent that rely on hydroelectricity like we do. By the end, they may feel inspired to investigate more about the world’s energy and all the opportunities we have to adopt clean energy.

This year’s giveaway

We launched a giveaway on March 31, where 400 teachers claimed an EarthBall for their classroom. The EarthBall is a fun beach ball with an image of the Earth, which can be used to make our new activity even more fun. We’re so grateful for the overwhelming interest we received in the giveaway and we look forward to seeing how your students used EarthBalls to engage with Earth Day conversations.

Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated on future giveaways.

More helpful activities

Here are more activities on our site which to support your Earth Day lesson planning:

• Caring for the Earth (Grades 2, 3)
  After thinking about different ways they can care for the Earth, your students create sentences on the board with word cards. The word cards introduce new vocabulary and provide a simple structure to build sentences. In pairs, students then create their own statements and draw a picture of themselves caring for the Earth.
   
• Seven generations thinking (Grade 5)
  Students develop an understanding of how our actions can impact people seven generations from now.
   
• Get to school the green way (Grade 7)
  Discuss the connection between climate change and transportation and then do a class survey about how students get to school. Using Google Maps, students compare their options for getting to and from school, identify factors involved in our transportation choices and then decide which one is the most sustainable.
   
• Inspiring climate action posters (Grade 7)
  Watch a short video clip of Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, who has inspired youth around the world to think about their energy choices and take action for climate change. Your students will then design and create a poster to inspire climate action.
   
• Climate change policies (Grades 10-12)
  Students work together in a jigsaw activity to discuss what they know about government policies and learn more about how specific policies can help fight climate change. Then they’ll test what they’ve learned with an online quiz.
   
• Thinking about water and climate change (Grades 11, 12)
  Students are challenged to describe the relationship between climate change and the health of water. By examining various sources, including details about Blue ecology, students develop a diagram that accurately represents the relationships between the health of water and climate change.