Celebrating Earth Day During COVID-19

Spend time outside learning about plants and animals to celebrate Earth Day

Wednesday, April 22, 2020 is Earth Day! Normally there are different ways to celebrate Earth Day through community-led events, but this year, everything looks a little different. Because we are still social distancing, I wanted to list a few ideas of how you can celebrate Earth Day and Earth Week this year.

1. Trash cleanup: go to a nearby park and spend an hour picking up trash (using gloves, of course). Have you ever driven or walked by an area in your neighborhood and seen litter? Now is the time to grab a trash bag and some gloves and pick it up! Your actions may inspire your neighbors to clean up some trash, too.

2. Participate in the City Nature Challenge, which will take place on April 24, 2020. Check out the website and see if your city is participating. Then, spend April 24-27 taking photos of plants and animals. April 28-May 3 is part two, in which citizen scientists (that's you!) spend time identifying what has been found. You can participate in both parts or just one.

3. Nature Journaling: spend a hour outside in nature observing a faraway landscape or a close-up plant, animal, or insect. Document your time and observation through a sketch or writing. This is also an excellent way to build a moment of calm into your day and be present during the quarantine. Here are nature journaling prompts from John Muir Laws. Check out John Muir Laws' events calendar to find out about live online drawing lessons, including several during Earth Week.

How will you celebrate our beautiful Earth and the unfolding of spring?

Beautiful Earth Day art from Orion Magazine.

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