Ready-to-Use Activities for Your First Weeks

Activities for your first weeks include low-prep, engaging lessons and activities that help 9-12 teachers build community and routines.

Welcome back, 9-12 teachers! New to climate topics or years in, this guide helps you connect them to the courses you already teach. This guide is designed to help you connect environmental content to the courses you're already teaching. Inside, you'll find resources across every subject area, from science and ELA to economics and math. Everything is ready to use in the first weeks of school when you're building community, setting rules, and setting the tone for the year. Everything here fits naturally into existing courses with little setup required. These are fun back-to-school activities high school teachers can use from day 1! 

Low-prep and ready for day one, these back-to-school activities give high school students something relevant and engaging right away, with little to no setup required. Each one works well as a first-week warm-up or discussion opener across a range of subject areas.

Back to School Activities

This collection includes writing prompts, goal-setting sheets, a student survey, and printable pages to help students reflect on summer and set intentions for the year. Everything is ready to use and easy to adapt, making it a solid first-week resource for advisory, homeroom, or any high school course.

Solutions for Climate Change

Students explore real climate solutions and answer questions to discover which approaches align with their own values, opening a genuine conversation about trade-offs and collective action. This interactive, no-prep activity works well as an opening discussion in any course.

Economics and Greenwashing Game

Students watch company advertisements, decide whether they would purchase each product, and then learn about greenwashing and the four types of consumer decision-making. It is a natural first-week activity that connects marketing, sustainability, and critical thinking.

Let's Talk About It Coloring Pages

These printable coloring pages invite students to reflect on their feelings about climate change and open honest conversation about climate anxiety and emotional responses. They work well in advisory, ELA, or psychology, or as an entry point for any course.

These videos and podcasts bring the science and human dimensions of climate change directly to your students, offering compelling content to anchor discussion and inquiry from day one. Each one works well as a first-week opener or homework assignment and fits naturally across a range of courses, from AP Environmental Science and biology to health and ELA.

What is Climate Change?

This CFR Education video traces the origins of fossil fuel use back to the 18th century and explains how greenhouse gas emissions are warming the Earth, covering key approaches to solving the climate crisis. A downloadable transcript and linked lesson plan are included.

Changes in Ecosystems

In this Khan Academy video, students learn about five ways human activities disrupt ecosystems: habitat destruction, pollution, invasive species, overexploitation, and climate change. A transcript, key vocabulary, and quiz are included.

Learning from Animals

In this podcast, young people share what animals have taught them about compassion and harmony with nature, and two naturalists discuss lessons learned from working closely with turtles. It works well as a discussion starter in biology or ELA.

Connecting With Nature

In this podcast, students from around the world share their perspectives on the positive effects of nature on teen mental health and the importance of spending time outside. It's a compelling opener for health, ELA, or advisory.

These hands-on lessons and activities for your first weeks give high school science students the chance to investigate real climate issues through research, field work, and design thinking. Each one connects to core science practices and introduces environmental topics students will engage with all year long.

Climate Solutions & Project Drawdown

Students brainstorm challenges posed by climate change, then research two solutions from the Project Drawdown database and collaborate to create a poster presenting their findings. This lesson gives science students a hopeful, evidence-based framework for climate action.

Carbon Removal Technology

Students review the carbon cycle and carbon sinks, then research and compare different carbon dioxide removal technologies by examining methods, resource requirements, risks, and benefits. Finally, students recommend a CDR technology for a specific community.

Design Thinking Solutions for Birds

Students research the threats climate change poses to migratory birds, then use a design thinking framework to develop a place-based proposal to improve bird habitats. This lesson gives students an authentic design challenge grounded in real ecological data.

Science Lesson: Carbon Sequestration

Students go outside to measure campus trees and calculate how much carbon each one stores, building an understanding of photosynthesis and the role forests play as carbon sinks. The lesson also invites reflection on the cultural significance of local trees.

These writing and literacy activities bring environmental topics into your English classroom from day one. Each one gives students something relevant and thought-provoking to read, discuss, and write about. Help your high school students build core writing skills with content that connects to the complex, real-world issues young people are ready to engage with.

Climate Fiction Lesson

Students read and analyze cli-fi short stories by young Maine authors, examining how each author develops a theme and narrative around climate change. Using what they have learned about the genre, students then plan their own place-based cli-fi story about surviving and thriving in a changing world. It works well in any ELA class as a creative writing unit focused on climate.

Nature Walk Poetry Activity

Students step outside to observe and connect with the natural world around their school, then explore poetry as a form of climate action and advocacy. After reflecting on nature as both a subject and a catalyst for writing, students compose original poems inspired by what they noticed on the walk. This 45-minute activity fits well as a first-week creative writing piece in any ELA class.

Rhetorical Appeals and Tourism

Students analyze tourism ads and oil company artwork to identify rhetorical appeals and explore how the travel industry shapes perceptions of place while contributing to carbon emissions. They then design a postcard from the future using their own rhetorical appeals. This lesson fits naturally into AP Language or any ELA course that covers argument and persuasion.

Slogans and Parallel Structures

Students evaluate three climate awareness slogans, watch videos on climate activism, and study how parallel structure makes language more powerful. They then create their own original climate slogans using four specific types of parallel structure, combining grammar instruction with environmental advocacy. This lesson works well in any ELA course that covers grammar in context.

These back-to-school math activities connect core high school math standards to real-world climate and environmental data, helping students see that mathematics is a tool for understanding and responding to the world. Each resource is ready to use with little to no prep and fits naturally into existing algebra, geometry, or data analysis units.

Algebra Worksheet

In this worksheet, students practice core algebra skills using data about rising temperatures and climate change, giving their math work a meaningful real-world context. Problems are grounded in actual climate data, helping students see mathematics as a tool for understanding environmental trends. This is a low-prep, standards-aligned activity that fits easily into any algebra unit.

Substitution & Elimination

Students apply systems of equations to a real-world question: Is it more cost-effective and environmentally friendly to own an electric vehicle than a gas one? Using video, guided questions, and interactive graphing tools, students build linear equations and solve using both substitution and elimination. It is an ideal resource for algebra classes looking to connect math skills to sustainability.

Algebra 2 & Physics

Students graph the dramatic decline in battery storage costs from 1991 to 2018, determine the best-fit curve to the data, and use their model to predict future costs. They then consider the economic and climate implications of affordable battery storage. This lesson works in Algebra 2, Statistics, or Physics and connects quantitative reasoning to real-world energy policy.

Graphing Lesson: Precipitation Data

Using real precipitation records, students create graphs, find the line of best fit, and determine the equation of the line to investigate how rainfall patterns have shifted over time. They then connect their analysis to a reading on precipitation and climate change and discuss what the data suggests about broader trends. This lesson fits into any algebra or statistics unit and builds strong data literacy.