Sustainability Teaching Resources
Make teaching sustainability easy this school year with printable worksheets, activities for kids, lesson plans and more — all created by teachers for your primary classroom.
This teaching resource collection is aligned with the Australian Curriculum cross-curriculum priority to help your students build a more sustainable future!
Each resource was designed to help your students understand how they can implement sustainable practices in the classroom and at home.
Our teacher team has carefully reviewed and curated each resource to ensure your students will be armed with information on everything from composting to conservation, as well as how to reduce, reuse, recycle, rethink, and repair.
Tackling this topic for the first time in your classroom? Read on for a primer from our teacher team!
What Is Sustainability? A Kid-Friendly Definition
Sustainability is a cross-curriculum priority in the Australian Curriculum and for a good reason. Primary school is an important time to begin talking to students about sustainability as we can instill these practices early and make them into lifelong habits. But explaining this concept to kids can be tricky.
Here's a kid-friendly sustainability definition we like to use to explain its meaning to our students:
Sustainability is the ability to meet someone's current needs without hurting the ability of people in the future to meet their own needs.
On a more technical level, sustainability represents a holistic approach to addressing environmental, social and economic challenges in a way that supports long-term well-being and resilience.
This often includes practices such as reducing carbon emissions, conserving natural resources, and promoting social equity.
- Plus Plan
Earth Day Mobile - Craft Template
Inspire your students to reduce, reuse, and recycle with a fun Earth Day craft project.
- Plus Plan
What Are Natural Resources? PowerPoint
A teaching presentation that explores what natural resources are and where they come from.
- Plus Plan
Natural Resource Use in the 21st Century PowerPoint
Explore how natural resources are used by humans in the 21st century with an instructional slide deck.
- Plus Plan
Material World PowerPoint - Processed and Natural Materials
Discover the difference between processed and natural materials with an instructional slide show.
- Plus Plan
Earth Day Writing Craftivity
Create a fabulous Earth Day display with a printable Earth Day craft activity.
- Plus Plan
Earth Watch – Drowning in Plastic Reading Comprehension Worksheet
A comprehension worksheet for a magazine article about plastic pollution in our oceans.
- Plus Plan
Caring For Country and Place in Sustainable Ways PowerPoint
Explore how Indigenous peoples care for Country and Place in sustainable ways with a teaching presentation.
- Plus Plan
Water is Life - Instructional PowerPoint
Learn about the importance of water to life on Earth, along with where water comes from, with an instructional slide deck.
- Plus Plan
Earth Day Activity Wheel
Encourage students to get involved in environmental responsibility with this collection of 8 Earth Day activities that focus on Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences.
- Free Plan
Sustainability Activity - Caring for the Environment
Promote sustainable living with a sustainability sorting activity.
- Plus Plan
What is Pollution? Guided Note-Taking Worksheets
Provide your learners with an organised note-taking method with a pack of Pollution note-taking templates.
- Free Plan
Renewable vs Non-Renewable Energy Sources – Worksheet
Discover the difference between renewable and non-renewable energy sources with a comprehension passage and worksheet.
- Plus Plan
How Can We Help Our Planet Mini Book
Help your students learn about how to keep our planet clean with a printable Earth Day book.
- Free Plan
Wildlife Conservation Vocabulary Words
Build academic vocabulary with a printable Animal Conservation word wall.
- Plus Plan
Solving Global Problems - Design an Invention Workbook
Help your students discover how innovation and invention can solve global problems with an invention project workbook.
- Plus Plan
What Could Happen? Environmental Change Task Cards
Predict and identify the effects of environmental change on plants and animals with a set of printable science task cards.
- Plus Plan
Ecological Footprint Draw and Write
Help your students be more eco-conscious by having them complete a carbon footprint worksheet.
- Plus Plan
Renewable or Nonrenewable? - Self-Checking Interactive
Investigate the differences between renewable and nonrenewable resources with a self-checking interactive science game.
- Plus Plan
Renewable or Nonrenewable? Earth's Resources Task Cards
Identify natural resources and the types of renewable energy with 24 renewable and nonrenewable resource task cards.
- Plus Plan
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Flipbooks
Display different ways to conserve resources with a set of handy recycling–based foldable interactive notebook templates.
- Plus Plan
Helping the Earth Flipbook
Use this printable recycling flipbook with your students to teach them about ways to help Earth.
- Plus Plan
Write About It! Recycling Writing Prompt Worksheets
Differentiate writing instruction in primary grades with informational writing prompts about recycling and conservation.
- Plus Plan
Save the Planet - Kids Mini Book
Teach your students to reduce, reuse, and recycle with a printable Save the Planet kid's book.
- Plus Plan
Earth Day Mini Book
Help your young students learn and write about Earth Day with a printable Earth Day book for kids.
- Plus Plan
Human Impact on the Environment-Research Project
Uncover how humans positively and negatively impact the different biomes around the world with a guided research project.
- Free Plan
Save Planet Earth - Science Word Wall Vocabulary
Print and display Earth Day-related terms in your classroom to improve vocabulary and discussion about Earth Day.
- Plus Plan
What Can We Recycle? Cut and Paste Worksheet
Remember what to recycle with a cut-and-paste worksheet.
- Plus Plan
Being Water Wise - Saving Water Poster Project
Learn and demonstrate knowledge about water conservation with a "Being Water Wise" poster project.
- Plus Plan
How to Save Water Poster and Worksheet Pack
Teach your students ways to save water with a printable poster and worksheet pack.
- Plus Plan
A World Without Water - Natural Resource Worksheet
Imagine and depict what a world without water would look like with a drawing prompt worksheet.
- Free Plan
Where Do Natural Resources Come From? Worksheet
Discover where Earth's natural resources are located with a pair of differentiated Natural Resource Worksheets.
- Plus Plan
How Do We Use Natural Resources? Concept Map Worksheet
Help your students uncover the ways that humans use natural resources with a concept map.