MAEOE | Project Learning Tree

Professional Development/

Project Learning Tree

What is Project Learning Tree?

Project Learning Tree is an award-winning environmental education program designed for teachers and other educators, parents, and community leaders working with youth from preschool through grade 12. Using trees and forests as windows on the world, this hands-on, interdisciplinary, award-winning program teaches students how to investigate, interact with, and develop skills for how to think, not what to think, about forests and the broader environment.

Why become a Project Learning Tree Educator?

Project Learning Tree is a great way to incorporate environmental education into your existing lesson plan in many subjects areas including science, math, social studies, and even PE. Innovative Teacher-Leaders utilize these comprehensive guides full of activities to create dynamic, interactive, and engaging learning opportunities that can be designed for either indoor or outdoor learning or a combination of both! Classroom teachers, environmental educators working in parks or nature centers, child care providers, Scout leaders, and more can benefit from the high-quality, easy-to-use materials, the professional development in environmental educaton, and an extensive state and national network of support.

How to Access PLT and Attend a Training in Maryland

MAEOE offers training to help you support integration of PLT into your program and classroom curriculum. We have virtual and in-person professional development opportunities.

Contact Mary Westlund, Maryland's PLT Coordinator, to learn more about PLT workshops in your area. Send an email to GreenSchools@MAEOE.org.

E-Curriculum and Self-Paced Online Training for Educators

Not able to attend an in-person workshop? You can access our professional development anytime and anywhere through PLT’s online courses. For information about online training/E-Curriculum go to the PLT store and check out these e-units:

What Courses and Guides are offered through PLT?

NEW! Explore Your Environment: K-8 Activity Guide

PLT’s new flagship curriculum Explore Your Environment: K-8 Activity Guide includes 50 hands-on, multidisciplinary activities to connect children to nature and increase young people’s awareness and knowledge about their environment. Activities include detailed step-by-step instructions, academic correlations, time and material requirements, and corresponding student worksheets with green career connections. This supplementary curriculum is designed to develop students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Explore Your Environment: K-8 Activity Guide offers educators a wide variety of engaging, hands-on activities, organized into grade bands: K-2, 3-5, and 6-8. Many activities also suggest variations for doing the activity with a different grade level or audience.

Topics include trees and forests, wildlife, water, air, energy, waste, climate change, invasive species, community planning, and more. The activities encompass the economic, ecological, and social aspects of environmental issues and are designed to help students learn how to think, not what to think.

The activities are suitable for use in formal classrooms and non-formal settings and several are particularly suited to exploring urban environments. Most activities are designed to take one or two 50-minute periods of instruction.

PLT activities are designed to be easy to use. Each activity contains all the information needed to teach the core lesson, including background information, preparation instructions, materials and time requirements, step-by-step instructions, student pages, assessment suggestions, and suggestions for extending the lesson.

Taking students outdoors to make observations or collect data is the core of many lessons and while there are lessons for both indoors and outdoors, all activities offer ways to “Take It Outside!” to extend student learning. In addition, many suggest service-learning opportunities that take students into their community.

PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide
Charting Diversity. Birds and Worms. Pollution Search. These are some of the 96 hands-on interdisciplinary activities found in Project Learning Tree’s PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide. Topics include forests, wildlife, water, air, energy, waste, climate change, invasive species, community planning, and more. Each activity is tailored to specific grade levels and learning objectives. The materials provide educators the tools they need to bring the environment into their classrooms — and their students into the environment.

Features
- 96 multidisciplinary activities that integrate core discipline areas, including STEM subjects, reading, writing, and social studies
- Background information and science content for teachers
- Alignment to state and national education standards, including connections to Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) three-dimensional approach
- Supporting features, such as literature connections, technology extensions, differentiated instruction, and student assessment tools
Carbon & Climate e-unit for grades 6-8
Perhaps more than any other environmental issue, the topic of climate change challenges science teachers to accurately convey data, reveal assumptions, and engage critical-thinking skills.

Designed for 6th-8th grade teachers, Carbon & Climate provides activities and resources to help educators meet these challenges, introducing students to some of the complex issues involved in climate change.

Features
- Hands-On Activities: Get students excited about science through hands-on activities, rather than simply memorizing facts.
- Meet NGSS Standards: The e-units are constructed around targeted performance expectations of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
- Flexible Curriculum: Use activities as stand-alone, or move through all e-unit activities from beginning to end.
- MAEOE offers hybrid training opportunities incorporating this curriculum and it's e-materials with the additional benefit of a trained facilitator to make the learning truly dynamic.
Treemendous Science!
For K-2 teachers, Treemendous Science! helps young children explore, experience, and collect data to understand how trees grow, the roles trees play in ecological systems, and how humans and trees interact.

Features
- Hands-On Activities: Get students excited about science through hands-on activities, rather than simply memorizing facts.
- Meet NGSS Standards: The e-units are constructed around targeted performance expectations of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
- Flexible Curriculum: Use activities as stand-alone, or move through all e-unit activities from beginning to end.
- MAEOE offers hybrid training opportunities incorporating this curriculum and it's e-materials with the additional benefit of a trained facilitator to make the professional development learning opportunity truly dynamic.
Energy in Ecosystems e-unit for grades 3-5
Designed for 3rd-5th grade teachers, the Energy in Ecosystems e-unit investigates ways in which organisms depend on each other to survive and thrive.

Students focus on forests (one of the largest and most complex types of ecosystems) and come to understand some of the interactions present in all ecosystems. In doing so, they learn to appreciate the natural systems on which we depend and begin to widen their circle of compassion to include all of nature.

Features
- Hands-On Activities: Get students excited about science through hands-on activities, rather than simply memorizing facts.
- Meet NGSS Standards: The e-units are constructed around targeted performance expectations of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
- Flexible Curriculum: Use activities as stand-alone, or move through all e-unit activities from beginning to end.
- MAEOE offers hybrid training opportunities incorporating this curriculum and it's e-materials with the additional benefit of a trained facilitator to make the professional development learning opportunity truly dynamic.
Environmental Experiences For Early Childhood
Developed with preschool educators and early childhood specialists, Project Learning Tree’s Environmental Experiences for Early Childhood includes over 130 experiences that engage children in outdoor play and exploration. It is specifically designed for educators who work with children ages three to six. Topics include exploring nature with five senses, meeting neighborhood trees, and experiencing trees through the seasons. An accompanying music CD features songs from children’s musician Billy B. Brennan that encourage children to sing, dance, and move.

Standards Alignment

Environmental Experiences for Early Childhood provides a structured alignment to the following early childhood accreditation programs:
Get the Materials

Attend a training — either in person or online — to get Environmental Experiences for Early Childhood.
- Contact your PLT State Coordinator about scheduled in-person workshops in your area, or work with him or her to plan one for your unique setting!
- Alternatively, if you want to do professional development when and where it’s convenient for you, check out this online course with an E-Guide.