Earth Coloring Pages

The Earth is the one subject every child already knows the shape of, and these Earth coloring pages play with it: the real planet seen from space, and the round world turned into a symbol of everything worth looking after.

The science pages show the planet as it is. The Earth from space with swirling bands of cloud, the Earth with a slice cut away to show its crust, mantle and core, a sunrise breaking over its curve, a classroom globe on its stand beside a magnifying glass, the Earth rising above the cratered Moon with two boot prints in the dust, an astronaut floating on a tether above it, a rocket leaving a looping trail, mountains rising from its edge, and the planet in a ring of rain and snow. One page splits the world in two, winter on one half and summer on the other.

Then the Earth as an idea. Hands of different sizes cup a small planet covered in trees, a girl hugs it in a field of daisies, children from around the world hold hands in a ring around it, and a cute little Earth waters a sprout with a tiny can. It sits in the branches of a great tree, on the shell of a tortoise walking through clouds, in the trunks of two elephants, inside a glass jar among seedlings and in a bird's nest beside three eggs. It wears a leafy crown and a knitted scarf, opens a zipper to reveal a garden, becomes a jigsaw with its last pieces going in, a bicycle wheel, a patchwork quilt and a coral reef full of fish. A whale arcs around it, birds migrate along a ribbon, a lighthouse stands on top of it and a hot air balloon drifts above. For patient hands there is an Earth mandala, a hexagon world of landscapes and a paper-cut globe on a wavy sea.

The photos that changed how people saw the planet

For most of history nobody had seen the whole Earth at once. The first famous picture came on Christmas Eve 1968, when the crew of Apollo 8, orbiting the Moon, photographed the Earth rising above its gray horizon. That photo, called Earthrise, is the scene on the page with the boot prints. Four years later the Apollo 17 crew took the Blue Marble, the whole planet lit by the Sun, with Africa and the white swirl of Antarctica clearly visible. Both pictures are often credited with helping start the environmental movement, and the first Earth Day was held in 1970, between the two.

Show a child either photo before coloring, and the swirling clouds and blue oceans on the page suddenly have a reference.

Coloring the planet so it looks real

Start with the oceans, because they cover most of the surface. A light blue in small circular strokes, a little darker near the edge of the globe, gives the sphere its roundness. Then the land: not one green, but green for forests, tan and yellow for deserts like the Sahara and the middle of Australia, brown for mountains, and white for Antarctica, Greenland and the Arctic. Leave the clouds white too. On the page with the swirling clouds, that means the white bands are part of the picture, not gaps.

The layers page makes a good model to color in order from the outside in: the thin crust in brown (thinner, compared to the whole planet, than the skin of an apple), the thick mantle in orange, the liquid outer core in yellow and the solid inner core in red or white. The inner core is roughly as hot as the surface of the Sun, which is usually the fact children repeat at dinner.

Which pages to start with

A round planet is a friendly shape for a small child: one big circle, with the continents as a handful of large areas inside it. The quickest pages keep it that way, with a single globe and little around it. Quick to color, above the grid, begins with:

• Earth from space with swirling clouds
• Whale swimming around the Earth
• Cute Earth watering a sprout

The middle of the collection adds a setting, a tree, a jar, a moonscape. The densest pages are the ones where the planet is filled with pattern or surrounded by it, the coral reef, the patchwork quilt and the mandala among them, and they suit an older child or an adult. Lots of detail opens on:

• Earth mandala
• Patchwork quilt globe
• Inside the Earth: crust, mantle and core

Seven continents, seven colors

Several pages show the continents clearly outlined: the Earth from space, the globe on its stand, the girl hugging the world, the Earth in its leafy crown. They make a geography lesson that needs nothing more. Give each continent its own color and make a key at the bottom of the page: North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and Antarctica. Children who color the continents learn their shapes faster than children who only look at a map, because they have to follow each coastline with the crayon.

The half-winter, half-summer Earth adds the seasons: ask which half of the world is having winter while the other has summer, and why.

An Earth Day wall of promises

Earth Day falls on April 22 every year, and these pages are made for it. In a classroom, let each child choose a page, color it, and write on the back one thing they will do for the planet: switch off a light, take a reusable bottle, plant a seed, pick up litter in the park. Pinned up with the promises facing out on a string, or with the pictures facing out on a wall, they make a display the whole school walks past.

The pages with seedlings, the watering can, the forest growing on top of the world and the Earth unzipped to show a garden go especially well with a planting activity on the same day. The tree coloring pages have a sapling on its stakes for the same lesson.

Printing a class set

Each page is a free PDF drawn for A4 at 300 dpi. On A4, print at 100 %; on US Letter, choose "fit to page" and the planet shrinks by about six percent, fully intact. The printing guide has the details for each browser. Add to pack under the pages you want prints them together, which is the quick way to prepare a class set. The ocean coloring pages and the nature coloring pages take the planet closer up.