This year, UMass is doing Earth Day big. Sunday April 22nd and Monday the 23rd will be packed full of activities, presentations and forums related to the environment.
To kick off the festivities, there will be a community service opportunity in the form of a campus clean-up event on Sunday morning. At 1 pm that day, there will be a concert to benefit student farms on the library lawn. During the concert, there will be a fair to showcase the great work that student sustainability groups are doing on campus. At 7 pm in the Campus Center Auditorium, there will be a showing of The Last Mountain, a movie about the struggle between a small town in West Virginia and a coal mining corporation.
On Monday at 10 am, there will be a series of Ignite presentations in the Student Union Ballroom and the Cape Cod Lounge. Ignite is a type of presentation where the presenter has 5 minutes and 20 power point slides to present an idea. The presentations on Earth Day will cover environmental topics and will be given by students, faculty, staff, and alumni. At 3 pm in Campus Center Room 164-75, there will be a panel of employers in green industries. At 4 pm in the Campus Center Auditorium, there will be a forum to discuss the sustainability of new buildings on campus. Also at 4 pm, in room 2601 of the Library, there will be a showing of Rivers and Tides, a movie about the artist Andy Goldsworthy, who specializes in making sculptures out of elements of nature. To culminate the Earth Day celebration, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be speaking about the environment at the Mullins Center at 7 pm. Kennedy is the son of the late Robert Kennedy, and is a renowned environmentalist.
So, mark your calendar and join us in celebrating Earth Day!