If Earth Day snuck up on you (like we keep hoping Spring-like weather will sneak up on us), know there is still time to celebrate your favorite planet. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Celebrate!
The good news is ideas abound about how to celebrate Earth Day. Earthday.org who calls themselves, “The world’s largest recruiter to the environmental movement,” have a world wide map of Earth Day events.
Many events are taking place Saturday. If you are in our Pine River/Northern Lakes Region, there is a special Earth Day Celebration and Indoor Farmer’s Market in Ideal Corners. If you are in our Driftless Region, check out all the activities at the Earth Day Celebration at the Winona Arts Center and Earth Fair put on by the Sustainable Institute in LaCrosse.
Do you prefer smaller celebrations? Here are a few more ideas.
Take in kids picture books about taking care of our planet. Read one of the following titles, preferably with someone you love: The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, The Earth Book by Todd Parr, The Earth and I by Frank Asch, Here and Now by Julia Denos, Thank You, Earth by April Pulley Sayre.
Go out in Nature–Did you know Saturday, April 23, is a Free State Park Day?
Do both–find a book and read outdoors!
If you can’t get outdoors, here is one of our favorite Nature Storytimes about Earth Day. Here is the activity sheet that goes with it.
Every Day Is Earth Day
Develop a new habit or take an action that helps the Earth and that you can sustain for the long haul.
Pick up trash. Often as the snow banks disappear, trash appears! Any trash we pick up and dispose of properly keeps it out of our lakes and rivers. If it helps to have a memorable term, “plogging,” a fitness trend that originated in Sweden, means picking up litter while jogging. As a non-jogger, I am happy to use the term for walking as well.
Learn about your “foodprint”–Earthday.org has some great resources on how to address climate change through diet change. According to them, a “foodprint” measures the environmental impacts associated with the growing, producing, transporting, and storing our food–from the natural resources consumed to pollution and greenhouse gasses produced.
One very concrete way to manage your foodprint is to know as much as possible about where your food comes from–whether that’s food you grow yourself (yay!) or getting to know the vendors, who grow produce and meat, at your local farmer’s market. Know that simply giving up meat may not be the only answer to eating sustainably. The Price of Meat website is one source that has insights on how mass production and consumption of meat is not sustainable.
So what’s the alternative? Jim Chamberlin is Happy Dancing Turtle’s resident expert on sustainable plans and practices for agricultural operations. He says if you want to dive even deeper into good things happening in meat production, check out Carbon Cowboys, a video series of case studies of producers using livestock to regenerate the land.
Make a meaningful, lasting change in how you use environmental resources. The Green Neighbor Challenge is a new web tool and social media campaign to “help anyone with a utility bill (including renters) find and sign up for green energy” in the United States. They also have information on energy saving incentives, energy policy options and on how to get involved in grassroots movements for the environment.
Still haven’t sparked your interest? Here is a list of 52 actions from Earthday.org that you can start where you are. Make every day Earth Day.