Statewide Earth Day Celebration
Celebrate our amazing planet by participating in our month-long BioBlitz or attending a featured Earth Day event.
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BioBlitz
Ongoing throughout April.
Visit https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/msu-science-festival-2024-bioblitz
Appropriate for: Kindergarten and Pre-K, Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age, 18 years and above
Discover the biodiversity at your local park, nature center, natural area, backyard, or any nature near you. Add your observations of any living organism (animals, plants, fungi, insects, and more) to the iNaturalist app/website by uploading pictures of what you see and the community will help identify which species it is. Explore the natural world around you and see how many species you can spot.
BioBlitz Resources
2024 BioBlitz Featured locations
Fenner Nature Center
2020 E. Mt. Hope Ave., Lansing, MI 48910Michigan Audubon Capital City Bird Sanctuary
6001 Delta River Dr, Lansing, MI 48906Chippewa Nature Center
400 S Badour Midland, MI 48640Blandford Nature Center
1715 Hillburn Ave NW Grand Rapids, MIGrand Traverse Conservation District Boardman River Nature Center
1450 Cass Rd. Traverse City, MI 49685Corey Marsh Ecological Research Center
9422 E. Herbison Road, Laingsburg, MI 48848Belle Isle Nature Center
176 Lakeside Drive, Detroit, MI 48207Little Forks Conservancy Riverview Natural Area
N Homer Rd, Midland, MI 48640Seney National Wildlife Refuge
1986 River Road Seney, MI 49883Woldumar Nature Center
5739 Old Lansing Rd, Lansing, MI 48917Wayne County Parks Crosswinds Marsh
42800 Arkona Road, New Boston, MI 48164
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Earth Bash @ MSU Recycling
Saturday, April 13, 12:00 - 4:00 PM at MSU Recycling Center
Appropriate for: Kindergarten and Pre-K, Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age, 18 years and above
Join us for a family-friendly event focused on reducing waste by practicing the principles of a circular economy.
Tour the recycling center and vermicompost hoop house. Get creative with Spartan Upcycle. Freecycle clothing and books. Learn how and why to do a home waste audit. Engage with other campus groups, and more!
Hosted in partnership with the MSU Office of Sustainability, MSU Student Life & Engagement and Eco Reps, MSUVote, and MSU PIRGM, the campus chapter of the student-run Public Interest Research Group.
RSVP encouraged but not required. Visit bit.ly/earthbash2024
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Earth Day Weekend Volunteer Day
Friday, April 19, 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM at W.J. Beal Botanical Garden Outdoors
Appropriate for: Kindergarten and Pre-K, Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age, 18 years and above
Join the Beal Botanical Garden staff to celebrate Earth Day and jump-start the garden for spring. Bring some boots and prepare to get dirty as we clean up the garden and make way for the plants to shine again. Hot cider and snacks will be provided, as well as lasting memories and a chance to learn more about how we care for this campus oasis.
Volunteering for this event will occur from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m,. followed by the spring opening of the garden from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.
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Belle Isle Nature Center Green Day
Saturday, April 20, 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM at Belle Isle Nature Center 176 Lakeside Dr Detroit, MI 48207
Appropriate for: Kindergarten and Pre-K, Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age, 18 years and above
Help us celebrate the planet with outdoor activities, nature hikes, earth-friendly crafts, and opportunities to participate in citizen science initiatives that support clean waterways. Green Day will also feature local conservation specialists, who will illustrate the benefits of green initiatives through an assortment of artistic and educational demonstrations.
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Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge And The Teachings Of Plants
Saturday, April 20, 6:00 - 8:00 PM at https://www.youtube.com/live/K5mswSSAxuI?feature=shared
Appropriate for: Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age, 18 years and above
Join featured speaker Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer and learn how to cultivate a reciprocal relationship with the living world. Listeners are invited to consider what we might learn if we understood plants as our teachers, from both a scientific and an indigenous perspective.
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim. Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain, and numerous scientific journals. In 2022, Braiding Sweetgrass was adapted for young adults by Monique Gray Smith. This new edition reinforces how wider ecological understanding stems from listening to the earth’s oldest teachers: the plants around us.
Robin tours widely and has been featured on NPR’s On Being with Krista Tippett and in 2015 addressed the general assembly of the United Nations on the topic of “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” Kimmerer is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability. In 2022 she was named a MacArthur Fellow.
As a writer and a scientist, her interests in restoration include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land. She holds a BS in Botany from SUNY ESF, an MS and PhD in Botany from the University of Wisconsin and is the author of numerous scientific papers on plant ecology, bryophyte ecology, traditional knowledge and restoration ecology. As a writer and a scientist, her interests in restoration include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land. She lives on an old farm in upstate New York, tending gardens both cultivated and wild.
Livestream video of the event
The livestream will start on April 20, 2024 at 6:00 PM EST.