Earth Day Art Lesson CONSERVATION - Our Fragile Earth (mixed media)
Your students will love creating OUR FRAGILE EARTH paintings with a very powerful and personal message. When you are teaching a unit on Sustainability, Conservation or EARTH DAY, use this impactful Art lesson plan to consolidate the topic learning.
OUR FRAGILE EARTH art project for Earth Day, can help students to gain a better conceptual understanding of Earth being one small part of a solar system in the wider universe. All steps are clearly explained and photographed, giving you the confidence to deliver quality visual art lessons to your students.
Use this comprehensive lesson plan and guide your students through creating artworks of our vast solar system, within which Earth is found. This lesson has tons of built in choice for differentiation, while keeping the skills taught consistent across the class, to save your sanity.
But you don't need to take my word for it, see what teachers say about the added value they gained from this product.
PRAISE FOR OUR FRAGILE EARTH art project for Earth Day
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "Very Satisfied! This was a great activity for Earth Day. The students were engaged and came up with some very interesting ideas. They loved being able to put their own ideas into their art." (TPT buyer). View more here:
❤️ Take the guesswork out of teaching art, avoid the epic fails that result from not having the time to trial the lesson or media yourself before teaching it.
I’ve done it all for you and trailed this lesson with my own students, aged 9-11, in 3rd grade through 5th grade. I am both a general ed classroom teacher and currently practising as a Visual Art and Digital Media specialist educator, teaching students from ages 4-12, at a primary school.
❤️ How will this resource help busy teachers, who are nervous about teaching art?
No worries - I’ve got you covered.
This lesson comes as a full colour PDF teacher guide, with a bumper 62+ slide deck, where all steps are clearly explained and photographed, from start to finish, giving you the confidence to deliver a series of quality visual art lessons to your students.
❤️ All the materials & skills are also clearly listed for you. It’s like having an art specialist with you in your classroom.
The PDF slides are purposely designed in landscape orientation to share with your students as a presentation on your large screen. This extra visual support will prove useful to you and your students, particularly diverse learners, and will also save yourself having to repeat the same instruction, like 100 times a lesson.
Select VIEW > enter full screen for presentation mode. Then use the arrow keys on your keyboard to drive a smooth slideshow experience, like a pro :)
Encourage students along the way, to follow choice options and create their unique artwork, while being guided by the information on the slides.
⏰ How long will this project take to finish?
This art project will span multiple lessons, depending on the age and stage of students and the size of paper /media/ style you or your students choose. Chunk into small manageable lessons, as shading and colouring can tire out little hands and quality of execution can drop. Between 4-6 lessons.
View the PDF & Video previews above, then add to cart and smile, knowing you will soon have beautiful artwork on the walls and students glowing with pride!
❤️ So what is special about this resource?
OUR FRAGILE EARTH art project for Earth Day is NOT a superficial art or craft option. As a specialist in this field, I write lessons that encourage deeper, cross-curricular learning and make meaningful connections to other subject areas. This IS:
- a painting & drawing tutorial that uses shapes, lines and measurement (Math),
- supports the concept of climate change & sustainability and the effects on Earth, when neglected (Science),
- teaches about the concept of visual communication (The content of my art affects others).
Inspired by current events around the globe, this lesson plan can be the perfect companion art project for students inquiring into
✏️ Change - Life cycles of plants, specifically around Spring
✏️ Earth Day
✏️ Habitats
✏️ Sharing the Planet (IB PYP)
✏️ Seasons,
✏️ Weather,
✏️ Climate change
✏️ The solar system
✏️ How The World Works (IB PYP)
✏️ Visual communication
✏️ How We Express Ourselves and (IB PYP)
✏️ And a great extension activity for shared picture books.
Students can express their unique ideas through personal choices and modifications, while working through the guided project with examples. Pausing in places to discuss next steps with students, check understanding and explore potential student responses or modifications, bringing personal creative ideas to the tutorial. This addresses the Viewing & Responding to artwork objectives in a purposeful way.
✅ What is included in OUR FRAGILE EARTH art project for Earth Day?
A 62+ slide PDF teaching support document for step-by-step guidance and reference, intentionally designed in landscape orientation. To share with your students as a presentation on your large screen. Select VIEW > enter full screen. Then use the arrow keys on your keyboard to drive a smooth slideshow experience, like a pro :)
This PDF includes step-by-step support & teaching instructions for:
- Materials list
- Visuals for reference
- Detailed instructions to create the artwork
- Photographs of every step
- Student and teacher examples of work in progress and completed. (4th grade - 6th grade)
- guidance for assessment - Learning Intentions included for the International Baccalaureate & New Zealand standards at levels 2 / Phase 2 which will closely aligned to assessment standards you may be using
- guidance and examples for Student Voice reflection/ assessment - either use orally with the slide, or print for students to fill out as a record of their learning. Alternatively export that slide as a jpeg from the PDF and post for digital reflections like Seesaw.
✅ What knowledge, techniques and skills will my students learn?
- Plan compositions
- Follow a tutorial for guidance - listening skills, visual discrimination, sequencing
- Develop fine-motor & technical skills for using metallic paints, oil pastels & materials of their choosing
- Draw accurately, adding details
- Respond to art created by artists and by other students
- Reflect on my own knowledge, skills, progress and artwork - using the included student sheets (share on screen for oral reflection or print out for student’s records.
✅ That sounds great! So what about the Visual Art focus?
- The goal is to show how fragile the balance of life is and why we need to protect our planet.
- Make connections to trans-disciplinary themes: How the World Works, Sharing the Planet / Planet Earth and Beyond (Science).
- Build skills for observational drawing (Studio Habits)
- Build skills for painting techniques & effects to create nebulae
- Build skills for oil pastel blending to create planets. (Studio Habits)
- Show an understanding for the art elements of COLOR (colour), Shape & SPACE
- Select & blend color (colour) values with purpose - to communicate form
- PLAN - compose artwork before gluing
❤️ Students today are very aware that our earth is facing challenging problems around pollution, extinction of species and depletion of resources. With this art lesson, you students will create artwork that communicated the fragility of Earth within our Solar System, while also making connections with an audience on a personal level.
Students select one thing that they feel will communicate connection and loss effectively and illustrated this on the Earth planet within the solar system.
Creativity and communication is developed through the unique ‘Earth’ artwork within each Solar System.
Samples of student artists statements have been included based on the following guiding questions:
- What did you make and why? (form & Function)
- How do you want people to connect with your artwork?
- Choose a thinking skills that you used when creating your artwork and explain how or when you used it (Critical, Creative, Transfer, Reflective)
✅ Bonus inclusion:
This project also aligns to the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme art curriculum
View the PDF & Video Previews above, then add to cart and smile, knowing you have just saved yourself heaps of time and effort!
✅ Where can I find more art lessons like this one?
→ You can browse all my art lessons and support resources provided as PDF presentation lesson HERE: VISUAL ART STORE
→ If you would prefer the added support of guided video tutorials, browse my growing collection in this custom category
HERE: ART LESSONS WITH VIDEO TUTORIALS
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Every care is taken with editing this resource and at times, errors can still sneak through. If you have any questions, contact me through Q & A, and be specific in your feedback so that I can make those improvements and give you, and others the best quality lesson plans.
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➡️ TERMS OF USE
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Created by Timea Willemse, © One Teacher's Journey, © Help Me Learn
