Carbon & Climate e-unit for grades 6-8

Project Learning Tree is excited to expand our curriculum and professional development opportunities to include Carbon & Climate for grades 6-8. This self-contained unit of instruction is fully online, making it easy for teachers to access and use.

Access the new e-unit


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.

Access the new e-unit

Hands-On Activities

Get students excited about science through hands-on activities, rather than simply memorizing facts.

Meets 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 investigations, or move through all the e-unit activities from beginning to end. 

Connections to academic standards

Project Learning Tree ’s e-units feature comprehensive, interactive connections to academic standards: Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Math, and the C3 Framework for Social Studies.

Winner of the Learning Magazine's Teachers' Choice Award

Teachers' Choice Award 2020

  Project Learning Tree’s Carbon & Climate curriculum for grades 6-8 has been selected a Learning ® Magazine 2020 Teachers’ Choice Award for the Classroom winner!  

For 25 years, the Learning® magazine Teachers’ Choice Awards have heralded the very best in classroom-tested, teacher-recommended products.  

Get access to the Carbon & Climate e-unit

Receive access to this new supplemental curriculum in conjunction with professional development. Attend an in-person professional development workshop in your state, or purchase an online training with the accompanying e-unit for $40 from shop.plt.org.

Each e-unit contains:

  •  Detailed step-by-step lesson plans
  •  Downloadable student pages to guide learning
  •  A range of assessment tools, including pre- and post-assessments and evaluation rubrics
  •  Easy-to-understand teacher background information
  •  Comprehensive, interactive connections to academic standards
  •  A self-paced online workshop with video demonstrations of the activities and lesson planning exercises
  •  Suggestions for fiction and non-fiction books to enhance the activities
  •  Links to websites, videos, and other supplementary resources 


Teachers who subscribe to an e-unit from Project Learning Tree will have access to quality learning activities anytime, anywhere.

The Carbon & Climate e-unit explores these essential questions: 

  •  What is climate?
  •  How does climate affect living systems?
  •  What role does carbon play in climate?
  •  What can we learn from past changes in the global climate?
  •  What can individuals do about climate change? 


This unit is designed as an introduction to climate science and its associated social, political, and environmental challenges.  

Grades 6-8 unit on carbon and climate

What teachers are saying

“I teach in the middle of coal country, Eastern Kentucky, and was very hesitant to teach this topic in depth. I want to thank you for helping me to approach a difficult topic with my students from a scientific point of view and for helping change perceptions in our region.”

--Susan Marvin

Teacher in Kentucky

“It is easy to do, not a huge amount of preparation, and can be done even in an urban environment.”

--Laura Baker

Teacher in Indiana

“I honestly found the unit resources to be among the most well-organized resources I have ever used.” 

--Agnes Zellin

Teacher in New York 

Get instant access to the Carbon & Climate e-unit for grades 6-8

Access the new e-unit

About Project Learning Tree

Project Learning Tree helps develop students’ awareness, knowledge, and appreciation of the environment, builds their skills and ability to make informed decisions, and encourages them to take personal responsibility for sustaining the environment and our quality of life that depends on it. 

For the last 40 years, Project Learning Tree has trained 700,000 educators to help students learn how to think, not what to think about complex environmental issues. 

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