Earth Day Word Search

About this puzzle

Earth Day started on April 22, 1970, when millions of Americans went outside to call for cleaner air, water, and land. This list follows that idea from the backyard up. It starts with things kids can do themselves, like Recycle, Compost, and pick up Litter, then widens out to Habitat, Rainforest, Pollinator, and Biodiversity, and finishes with clean power from the Solar Panel and Wind Turbine.

Teachers use this Earth Day word search as a warm-up before a schoolyard cleanup or a science lesson on ecosystems, and the short note under each word gives students something real to discuss afterward. Families print it for a rainy April afternoon. Look for Nelson, too: Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin is the person who came up with the idea for the first Earth Day.

The 31 words in this puzzle

Every word, with a short note. Handy for teaching the vocabulary before or after solving.

In every version (12)

Compost

Compost is food scraps and yard waste broken down by worms, fungi, and bacteria into dark, crumbly soil that helps gardens grow.

Earth

Earth is the only planet known to support life. About 71 percent of its surface is covered by water, most of it in the oceans.

Garden

A garden can grow food close to home and feed bees and butterflies. Native flowers are an especially good choice because local pollinators already depend on them.

Litter

Litter is trash left on the ground instead of in a bin. Rain can wash it into streams and rivers that flow to the ocean, which is why Earth Day cleanups matter.

Nature

Nature means all living things and the land, water, and air around them. Time outdoors helps people notice what is worth protecting.

Ocean

Oceans cover about 71 percent of Earth's surface. Tiny ocean plants called phytoplankton produce a large share of the oxygen we breathe.

Oxygen

Plants release oxygen as they make food from sunlight. Tiny ocean plants called phytoplankton are thought to produce roughly half of the oxygen on Earth.

Planet

Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only one known to support life. Earth Day is a reminder that it is the only home we have.

Recycle

The familiar recycling symbol of three chasing arrows was designed in 1970 by Gary Anderson, a college student who entered a design contest tied to the first Earth Day.

Reduce

The first word in reduce, reuse, recycle. Using less in the first place, like skipping a plastic bag, saves the most energy and materials.

Tree

Trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen, shade our homes, and shelter wildlife. Planting a tree is one of the most popular Earth Day activities.

Wildlife

In 1903 Theodore Roosevelt set aside Pelican Island in Florida to protect birds. It became the first unit of what is now the National Wildlife Refuge System.

Added in Medium and Hard (8)

Bicycle

Riding a bike instead of taking a car for short trips means no exhaust fumes at all. Bikes run on pedal power and give riders exercise too.

Climate

Weather is what is happening outside today. Climate is the usual pattern of weather in a place over many years, such as hot, dry summers or snowy winters.

Endangered

An endangered species is at risk of disappearing forever. The bald eagle, protected under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, recovered and was taken off the list in 2007.

Habitat

A habitat is the natural home of a plant or animal. It has to provide food, water, shelter, and enough space to live and raise young.

Pollution

In the years right after the first Earth Day, Congress passed major laws to fight pollution, including the Clean Air Act in 1970 and the Clean Water Act in 1972.

Rainforest

Tropical rainforests cover only a small part of Earth's land, yet scientists estimate they are home to about half of all the land plant and animal species on the planet.

Reusable

Reusable bags, bottles, and lunch containers can be used again and again. That is the reduce and reuse part of the motto reduce, reuse, recycle.

Solar Panel

Solar panels are made of photovoltaic cells that turn sunlight directly into electricity. Photo comes from the Greek word for light.

Added in Hard (11)

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is short for biological diversity, the variety of all living things in a place. More variety usually makes an ecosystem healthier and better able to recover from change.

Conservation

Conservation means protecting nature and using resources wisely. President Theodore Roosevelt helped protect about 230 million acres of public land.

Coral Reef

Reefs are built by tiny animals called coral polyps and shelter about a quarter of all ocean species. Water that gets too warm can cause corals to bleach.

Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a community of living things, like plants, animals, and fungi, together with the soil, water, and air around them, all depending on each other.

Nelson

Gaylord Nelson, a U.S. senator from Wisconsin, proposed Earth Day after seeing the damage from a 1969 oil spill off Santa Barbara, California.

Ozone Layer

A layer of ozone gas high in the atmosphere that blocks much of the Sun's harmful ultraviolet light. A 1987 agreement called the Montreal Protocol is helping it slowly heal.

Pollinator

Bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and even some bats carry pollen from flower to flower. The USDA says about three quarters of the world's flowering plants depend on animal pollinators.

Renewable

Renewable energy comes from sources that refill naturally, like sunlight, wind, and flowing water. Unlike coal and oil, these sources will not run out.

Seedling

A seedling is a young plant that has just sprouted from a seed. Planting trees is a popular Earth Day activity, and Arbor Day, a holiday just for trees, began in Nebraska in 1872.

Wetland

Marshes, swamps, and bogs are all wetlands. They soak up floodwater like sponges, filter pollution from water, and give homes to many birds, frogs, and fish.

Wind Turbine

Wind pushes a turbine's long blades around, and the spinning shaft turns a generator that makes electricity without burning any fuel.

A few facts to share while you solve

• About 20 million Americans took part in the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, roughly one in ten people in the country at the time.
• The organizers picked April 22 because it fell between spring break and final exams, so college students could join in.
• Earth Day went worldwide in 1990, when about 200 million people in 141 countries took part.

Four versions of this puzzle

Pick a version with the buttons above the grid. Each one has its own grid and answer key, and your progress on each is saved separately in this browser.

Hard and large print versions

Hard earth day word search: all 31 words on a 18 × 18 grid, hidden forward, backward, up, down and along both diagonals, with filler letters borrowed from the word list. Print it without the word list for an extra challenge. Play the hard version, or see all hard word searches.

Large print earth day word search: the 12 most familiar words on a 11 × 11 grid, printed with big letters and a big word list, and no backwards words. Play the large print version, or see all large print word searches.

Printing this word search

Press Print / PDF above the puzzle. You get a clean one-page sheet with the title, the grid, a word list with tick boxes, and optional name and date lines. The answer key prints on a second page. Prefer a file? Download it as a PDF or an image to print later or drop into a worksheet. Whatever version is showing on screen is the one that prints, and the large print version prints with bigger letters.

How to play online

1. Find a word from the list in the grid. Scanning for its first letter is the quickest way.
2. Drag across the word from its first letter to its last. On a phone, you can also tap the first letter, then the last.
3. Found words get highlighted and crossed off. Stuck? Hint circles the first letter of a word you haven’t found.

Read the full guide to solving word searches, with tips that make big grids much faster.