Teaching Climate Change To Middle School Students

Explore this Guide

Welcome to our Teaching Climate Change guide for 6th-grade to 8th-grade teachers and students. Explore this guide to access a plethora of activities and resources, including high-quality climate change lesson plans, interactive games, entertaining podcasts, and engaging reading materials. Each resource has been hand-picked to make teaching climate change easier in your classroom. Whether you're introducing climate change for the first time or looking for resources that deepen your students' knowledge of Earth’s climate, you can find what you need below!

Lesson Plans

Take your climate education to the next level with these engaging lesson plans that review the impacts of climate change, explore sustainability, and encourage youth climate action through hands-on activities and projects.

Education as a Solution to Climate Change Lesson

This lesson guides young people to create projects as a means of informing and inspiring positive change. Explore how environmental education can inform and empower the next generation.

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Games & Activities

Get students actively learning climate science with these educational resources that feature experimentation, interactive activities, and energizing games.

The Best Solutions to Climate Change

In this interactive fortune-telling game, students explore four potential solutions to climate change and get their "fortunes" read using informational "Tarot" cards about empowering girls and women, eliminating food waste, using more renewable energy, and switching to plant-rich diets. Explore human activities that can serve as mitigation and adaptation strategies. 

More Games & Activities

Listening & Reading

These climate-themed multimedia resources give space for you and your learners to explore the effects of climate change, independently or as a whole class. Use these materials to build upon background knowledge or investigate important climate literacy topics. 

Community Building for Climate by Kids

This Los Angeles-student-hosted podcast episode centers on expert guest, Shawn Sweeney, Associate Vice President of Communications and Policy at the Jane Goodall Institute, who introduces listeners to a climate action group, Roots And Shoots.

More Listening & Reading Resources

Professional Development

Need a little extra guidance when tackling environmental teaching topics? Check out SubjectToClimate's Professional Development courses that have everything you need to know and are completely free. From a basic understanding of climate to writing detailed climate change lesson plans, these courses will help you bring climate science into every classroom. For more professional learning opportunities, check out our Professional Development page on SubjectToClimate.org. 

Teacher Guides

Regardless of the subject you teach, it's possible to incorporate climate change education into any curriculum! Explore our other guides for Math and ELA, packed with plenty of math and English resources that include climate change activities, lessons, and more!

Free ELA Lesson Plans for Grades 6-8

Explore our 6-8 grade Math guide to find a range of middle school resources that offer hands-on learning experiences that will spark students’ curiosity and expand their real-world math skills!

Free Math Resources for Teachers 6-8

Our 6-8 grade ELA guide features activities, literature, and interactive tools aimed at refining media literacy, writing, and listening skills while promoting environmental awareness in your middle school students.

Next Steps