Earth Day 101: The Complete Link Guide
It’s a celebration like no other. Earth Day—observed worldwide every April 22—is a kind of homage to the modern environmental movement.
It started in the 1970s. Amidst the beginnings of fiber optics, the strains of the Beatles’ last album, the news of Apollo 13, Earth Day was born. Conceptualized by its founder Gaylord Nelson, a US Winconsin Senator then, Earth Day was the first nationwide environment protest meant to “shake up the political establishment and force the issue into a national agenda.”
During this time, Americans had huge V8 sedans and their industries slewed sludge and smoke without being held responsible. They even thought of air pollution as something that goes with progress.
When the first Earth Day came around, approximately 20 million Americans demonstrated their demand for a healthy environment. This number included universities and schools as well as environmental groups that banded together after realizing they wanted the same things.
So big was the event, and so successful in encompassing political barriers, that Earth Day went worldwide in 1990, multiplying by ten the number of people involved in 141 countries.
That even paved the way to the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
In this millennium, the event’s focus veered from recycling and oil pollution to global warming and pushing for clean energy. And now the fight for those things continues this April 22, 2008.
Here are some links that can serve as guides as you find out more about Earth Day, what you as a teacher can do to participate, and the environmental issues plaguing the planet:
Fact sheets about the environment
Teacher resources
Environmental Campaigns
Events
Earth Day Resources
Sources:
“Earth Day.” Retrieved April 14, 2008 from http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/asl/exhibits/earthday.html
“Education.” Retrieved April 14, 2008 from http://ww2.earthday.net/~earthday/node/12
“Environmental Fact Sheets.” Retrieved April 14, 2008 from http://www.earthday.net/resources/materialsdownloads/default.aspx
“History of Earth Day.” Retrieved April 14, 2008 from http://www.earthday.net/resources/history.aspx
“Programs.” Retrieved April 14, 2008 from http://ww2.earthday.net/programs
(Published 21 April 2008, Smart Schools Program)
