Earth Day reaches 380,000+ children

Our 20 Years, 20 Wins series has covered how ACTAsia builds lasting change, and its Earth Day programme shows how far that reach can stretch. #16 of 20

Global Date, Wider Reach

Earth Day is already one of the world’s most recognised environmental dates, marked by more than a billion people in nearly 200 countries every April. In 2021, ACTAsia added it to its Caring for Life (CFL) education for children programme, and in doing so, introduced CFL’s approach to a much wider pool of schools that had never encountered it before. Earth Day gave ACTAsia a way to put its philosophy in front of new teachers and classrooms, using a date they already knew and celebrated as the entry point. Five years later, as ACTAsia celebrates 20 years, that single addition has reached more than 380,000 children across China.

A Holistic Approach 

For ACTAsia, Earth Day is so much more than a conversation about the planet. Using our CFL framework, this day is an important opportunity to emphasise a holistic approach to change, and to put animals back into a conversation that too often leaves them out. It can be easy for campaigns to compartmentalise (especially in the context of primary school),  treating environmental issues as separate from animal welfare and human wellbeing rather than connected to them: a campaign on cutting carbon emissions rarely mentions the wildlife losing habitat as the climate shifts; a push to phase out single-use plastic rarely mentions the animals that ingest it or the people living nearest to where it ends up (the save the turtles campaign is an excellent example of this). ACTAsia’s CFL framework is built on the opposite premise. With the understanding that people, animals and the environment are intimately interconnected, lessons must address all three. To only address one is to leave the picture incomplete.

Each year, ACTAsia’s Earth Day programme takes on a different theme through that lens – past years have centralised biodiversity, zero waste, plastic pollution – pairing lesson plans and enrichment materials with whichever issue is most current. In 2026, marking its sixth annual Earth Day event, ACTAsia chose microplastics.

Earth Day 2026: Microplastics 

Microplastics cut across every part of that system. Plastic waste breaks down into fragments too small to filter out of oceans and waterways, where marine animals ingest it directly, and researchers have found it accumulating in human bodies too. It’s a well-known problem, but often usually in the context of just one issue at a time, be it pollution or health or wildlife. The 2026 Earth Day programme gave children a concrete way to see it as all three at once.

Ahead of the event, ACTAsia ran a teacher-training webinar on the topic, drawing 6,580 teachers attending live or watching the recording – a sign of how far interest in the CFL approach now reaches beyond ACTAsia’s existing network of Pioneer schools. In classrooms, teachers built the theme into projects and activities suited to their students. Some had children track single-use plastics in their own homes for a week; others turned the science of microplastics into art, hands-on experiments, or discussions about the choices behind what ends up as waste.

Building on the Momentum

Earth Day started as one addition to ACTAsia’s education calendar. Five years on, it’s become one of the widest doors into CFL’s philosophy. It reaches teachers and schools who might never otherwise encounter it and gives them a way to show children that animals, people and the environment rise and fall together. As ACTAsia marks 20 years, that is the pattern behind most of its wins: find the opening, then build something that keeps reaching further.

20 Years, 20 Wins 

To read more about ACTAsia’s 2026 Earth Day programme and its work on microplastics, visit our news page. Learn how you can get involved and consider donating today

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