Free Printables About Pollution
Published:
June 13, 2020
Contributor:
Jeannette Tuionetoa
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you decide to make a purchase via my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. See my disclosure for more info.
Addressing pollution in our planet and communities is a tangible task we can teach our kids, one tiny action at a time. Teach your children all about the environmental harms to our planet with some help from these free printables about pollution.
People can debate about climate change until the cows come home. However, when it comes to pollution, there is no debate. We pollute our environment, and just like we pollute it, we can also do somethings to clean it up.
Do you notice the pollution around you?
I regretted not teaching my kids about pollution when they were little. Sadly, I didn’t pay much attention to it until I moved to a small island. On a small island, you can’t turn a blind eye to pollution. It is all around.
You can’t stay in a particular neighborhood and pretend it doesn’t exist. We are up close and personal to it. My kids and I notice trash where it shouldn’t be. We see the garbage that washes up on the shores all too often.
I couldn’t ignore it. I am not sure how the mindset on the island got to appoint where it was OK to throw trash on the ground. Kids literally just throw their candy wrappers on the ground. Maybe I am sensitive to it now because I live in such a small space to witness it daily.
I don’t have to turn on the news and have a reporter tell me pollution is a “thing” because we see it here. First world countries take for granted the sanitation services available – Do your kids know that city street sweepers go around town before we even wake up in the morning.
There is none of that here. It now makes my little family super conscious about littering. When a tree is chopped down, we notice. It saddens me.
It was getting so bad that the country has made it law that chopping one tree down, automatically requires the planting of 5 more somewhere.
The increasing number of cars creating air pollution makes every oxygen-producing tree critical.
How can we begin telling our kids, including the little ones, about pollution?
We can start by discussing with our kids what pollution is, how it happens, what we can do, and why we should even care.
What is pollution?
Pollution is anything (not naturally created on the earth) that causes our world and environment to be unhealthy in one way or another.
When we introduce these pollutants into our environment, the equality of life for plants, animals, and humans is impacted. Pollution can also be on a global scale, or they can be more localized.
The pollution types below are recognized all around the world:
- Air Pollution
- Water Pollution
- Land Pollution
- Thermal Pollution
- Radioactive Pollution
- Personal Pollution
- Noise Pollution
- Light Pollution
- Visual Pollution
How does pollution happen?
Mostly all industrial machines and processes cause pollution. That is hard to explain to kids when all they want to ask is why we can’t just stop it all.
Our world and technologies have evolved in such a way that these large scale pollutants are everywhere. From mailing packages, driving our cars, product factories, and even eating in restaurants, create pieces of pollution that go into the air and harm our Earth.
What can we do?
Look, we can’t save the world. If we stopped to really think about how bad our world is getting, we would drive ourselves crazy and create paranoia. I would anyway.
However, we can take one step in front of the other to help make this land a healthier place to live.
There are actions we can take right here and right now to contribute to this cause. Explore some FREE resources to help.
1. Plant trees.
Planting a Tree | Eco-Friendly Kids
2. Grow some food/garden.
Herb Gardening for Kids: 5 Ways to Get Them Interested in Growing
3. Conserve water.
How to Encourage Your Child to Be Thankful for Clean Water
4. Compost.
FREE Resources to Help Kids Learn About Soil and Composting
5. Pick up trash around your neighborhood or shorelines (in my case and those who live near beaches).
6. Reduce, reuse, and recycle.
Resources to Teach Kids About Recycling
Why should we care about pollution?
Pollution plays a role in our health and many environmental issues. When we teach our kids about pollution, we teach them that they are essential to the planet’s wellbeing. Even a little contribution against pollution helps in a big way.
Here are a few facts from ScienceExplorers.com to share with your kids in helping them understand:
– 40% of the rivers and 46 percent of the lakes in the United States are so polluted no one can use them for fishing or swimming.
– 50% of the people in the world have to drink contaminated drinking water causing anywhere from 5 to 10 million deaths a year.
– Recycling just one glass bottle reduces air pollution by 20 percent and generates 50 percent less water pollution than making a brand-new bottle.
Ultimately, the most critical part of our pollution studies should be guided by one thing.
Since God created this world and left us in charge over it (Psalm 8: 6-8, Genesis 1:26–28), we should take care of it until his glorious return.
As Christians, we are called to be good stewards of the earth. We should totally be concerned about our air being clean, clean water, and preserving the natural resources he created.
Here are some activities we can do to help teach our kids about pollution.
Water Filtration Experiment (water pollution and clean water) | Teach Beside Me
Polluting a Fish Water Pollution Exploration | The Owl Teacher
Water Pollution for Kids: Fun Science Activities | One Time Through
Oil Spill Experiment (Change Your Minds bout Pollution) | More Time 2 Teach
Fun Science Experiment to Teach Kids About Pollution | Raising Up Wild Things
Air, Land and Water Pollution Activities with FREE Printables | Natural Beach Living
Grab these FREE printables about pollution to go alongside your lessons.
FREE Pollution Printables | Natural Beach Living
Pollution FREE Word Sort | Just Peachy in Elementary
FREE Pollution Worksheets | ESLprintables.com
Air Pollution FREE Worksheet | Kids Academy
FREE Worksheet Air Pollution Causes | iSLCOLLECTIVE
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle FREEBIE! | KTPonTPT
Pollution Cause and Effect FREE Chart | Just Peachy in Elementary
12 Pollution Worksheets For 3Rd Grade and Pollution (FREE) | Pollution Lesson Plan
The Earth: Pollution (FREE Resources) | Every Star is Different
Ocean Pollution FREE Word Search | Monster Word Search
All that being said, we as a people can overdo it at times. Thinking that we can “save the planet” when, in fact, we should know that the world God created is only temporary.
We can try our best to think green, and yet, God has a plan for it to one day end.
2 Peter 3:10 explains how the earth will be destroyed one day by fire, and the heavens will disappear.
Let us not be idle, but take care of this world the best way we can. We will keep at it while we wait for his return to bring us to our true home.
