CSE will help you plan an Environmental Day of any sort.  Earth Day is not the only day to celebrate the environment.  You can easily proclaim any day your city’s “Earth Day” or environmental day or CSE day.  The most popular and successful public events have been fairs and festivals. Parades can be held in conjunction with the fairs. Clean-ups are usually held the week or month before (or after). Hundreds of local Earth Day fairs are held around the United States; our hope is one day soon we are reporting that CSE sponsors over 1,000 each year. The fairs are typically held outdoors in a city or county park—a school field or stadium with invited exhibitors. Each exhibitor presents some sort of demonstration or educational exhibit or craft from recycled items. It may help you to have a theme for the celebration. By adding food vendors, a green market and entertainment to the event, you will guarantee a fun, educational and festive day. The only drawback to this type of event is the weather and deciding on whether to have a rain date. To allay these worries, you can arrange to hold the event inside—if possible.

During the weeks prior to the celebration, you need to try to get collaborating partners and supporters involved.  Local businesses, organizations and schools can help by sponsoring an event or donating needed foods or products.  Each school could choose one of the CSE projects listed and host it a week or two before the festival.

Introduction to the CSE Clubs – At the festival, there will be a booth set up introducing the new curriculum being incorporated into any after school program with clubs.

Our Little Chefs SPICE Club (Special Program Institute for Culinary Excitement) will start with a beginning cooking class and graduate to more advanced classes preparing meals as they develop more proficiency in the kitchen.  Students learn the importance of safe food handling and the dangers to their families.

Horticulture/Green Industry:  “Green Thumbs” Club teaches the students about the life cycle of plants, requirements for growth/good growing conditions and the parts of plants.  Students become involved with earth projects of clean-up and recycling and become aware of the importance of organic gardening and the green industry as a whole.

“Mad CSE Scientists”:  Students will study the life cycles and evolution of bacteria, viruses and molds.  Students will participate in activities such as the swab test with Petri dish cultures and bread mold experiments to see how these organisms are all around us, and how they grow.

Jr. CSE Inspector’s Club:  An intern instructor from a local River Keeper will teach students about water, soil and air quality testing. We will have them conduct testing activities in the community as well in their homes.

Food Area or Festival – The current SPICE students will be in charge of the food venue. Everyone eats and the environmental consequences are far-reaching. Food is a fun feature at any event and always draws a bigger crowd than for non-food events. At any all-day or multi-hour festival, food is a necessity and where much of the money is made. The ability to offer food varies from venue to venue.  Consider this when selecting a venue. Set up a Green Market and invite area farmers to bring locally-grown, organic produce.  Food festivals with representatives from the natural and organic foods network entice people into learning about the environmental and health impacts of our food choices. You can involve local-food restaurants, nutrition groups as well as organic food suppliers in offering vegetarian fare.  This is an opportunity to raise awareness and educate the community about the global and individual effects of food-related personal habits and the industries connected with those choices. In some areas, successful fund-raising events have been planned around food choice issues. These are "natural fundraisers" because everyone is more likely and willing to pay for food than for other things.  

Branch out Worldwide – This can be done by high schools all around the county—planting trees in each city and sponsoring a country.  CSE is promoting a tree planting campaign across the nation in all 50 states.  It benefits everyone and it is an effective way to reduce greenhouse gases.  Trees absorb the carbon dioxide and create oxygen for us to breathe.  Have fundraisers or Environment Fairs to bring awareness to the community.  Encourage your community to plant a tree by borrowing paper bags from your local grocery store, put your message on or in the bags and then return them to get distributed to the customers.  Report to CSE your project. Let us know where and how many trees or seedlings you planted.  Once your state has participated, you can sponsor a planting in any country in the world.  Help us reduce greenhouse gases world wide.  The branches we plant across our continent will reach around the world. 

Unwanted Seedling Giveaway – This would be perfect for all students to hunt for seedling on school properties and at home.  They would dig up unwanted tree seedlings which sprout in their gardens and lawns. Have them set up a booth at the festival to give away the collected trees on the designated day for pennies.  Ask people to donate the pennies in their pocket or purse.  You may even find a corporate sponsor willing to pay for the printing of an educational leaflet which would inform your community about common indigenous trees and their care and planting. This event costs practically nothing to implement has been very popular in the past. You will be pleased with the community response—they like the idea of saving those unwanted seedlings.

Enlighten your Neighbor with Grocery Bags – This would be a great project for all the grammar schools.

1.  Contact a local grocery store and see if the manager will let you "borrow" a bundle (usually 500) of bags so each student in your school can decorate one. Let the manager know about the project and its environmental education message.

2.  Decorate. Have students at school decorate the bags with pictures of the earth, environmental messages, a fair date, etc.  Let them be creative but DON’T allow them to write their last names anywhere.

3.  Within a week before Earth Day or your Environment Day, return the decorated bags to the grocery store.  Contact local newspapers when they are returned to show your appreciation to the cooperating business.  The store then distributes these bags (full of groceries) to shoppers on your Environment Day or a few days before to advertise it.  Another Idea: If you can't use paper bags, you can have your students decorate individual fliers, or even bookmarks, which can be handed out to shoppers or inserted in their shopping bags. 

 

 

Give "Environmental Hero" Awards – Honor a hero each year. Present a framed certificate and plant a tree in their honor. You can also hold a banquet and fund-raiser in their honor. Solicit nominations from the community for heroes.

 

Recycle STAT or 911 – We all know the importance of recycling our glass, plastic and paper but this is only a starting point.  Set up a recycle station at your environment fair or make it an entrance fee to bring in items.  This could be as large or as small as you desire, know your capacity.  Visit this website to http://www.earth911.org/master.asp and find out what other items are easy to recycle.  It will often turn into a fundraiser as well.  City-wide a collection can be called for a week or so before for unwanted air conditioners.  Designate a day for pick up and a recycling firm or tech school will scrap them and split the profits.

Contests – This could be a contest held in each school.  For an effective and creative Festival, hold a contest: poster, essay, slogans & themes, poetry, photographs, songs, art, public service announcements, etc. Remember, if you get several hundred essays, someone has to read and judge them.  You will need a central location and contact person for collecting entries. Poster and essay contests are very straightforward to run by sending notices to all schools and youth groups.  Your notice announces the themes, prizes, contest rules, prizes, eligibility and deadlines. You can have the awards ceremony at a culminating event and invite local businesses or individuals to donate prizes for different age groups.  Winners could be submitted into CSE’s monthly and yearly contests.

Fair Scavenger Hunt or "Walk around" - Have exhibitors at your fair or festival submit a question(s) for the hunt, the answer to which can be found in their exhibit. (Examples: What percentage of US greenhouse gas emissions is from cars and light trucks? What living organism is responsible for the problems suffered by shade trees? Tropical forests are being destroyed at the rate of 50 to 100 acres per minute; what are three typical uses of tropical woods imported into the USA?)  Print up a list of questions, and include where the answer can be found. This list of questions becomes the hunt. You might get a local radio station exhibit to be the hunt headquarters at the festival. They would be responsible for passing out the forms, collecting and "grading" them (you supply them with the list of answers), and giving out prizes. This activity increases exposure for your exhibitors, increases the education of the participants, and offers a great publicity vehicle for all involved. You can offer bonus points if participants car-pooled, took the shuttle bus, rode their bike, etc. It is usually easy to get prizes donated from participating exhibitors, local businesses and individuals. The prizes don't have to be fancy - packages of seeds, wooden pencils, cloth or string bags, baking soda shakers - it is fun to assemble environmentally friendly prizes that also serve to raise awareness. When the event is over, you may even be able to distribute the scavenger hunt list with answers to local teachers for use in their classrooms. (If your group builds an exhibit, be sure to include questions and answers from your exhibits as well.)

Proclamations - An inexpensive and effective way to get the ball rolling at the "official" level in any city, county or state, is to invite the Mayor, Board of Supervisors, Governor and any School Districts or other official bodies to issue Earth Day proclamations. Send officials a sample and invite them to create one of their own. You can arrange to receive the proclamation at a public meeting which also provides an opportunity to get the word out both to public officials and to other community members attending the meeting or watching on cable TV.

Community Report Card - Your environmental day can provide an annual opportunity to review a prior year's progress in a variety of areas. Public officials and citizens can be invited to rate the city on its air, water, transportation, green spaces, handling of hazardous waste and toxins, recycling, etc. You may want to arrange to present reports and comments to your City Council or have this local Earth Day proclaimed as a chance to make an annual address regarding the environment.  Ideally, CSE would like a specific day to be proclaimed Your City’s Environment Day (i.e. the third Saturday of May or the first Saturday of June).

Petitions/Letters/Politicians - At any event, have a letter-writing table with sample letters written on several issues. Sell stamps, postcards or pre-stamped envelopes and collect letters or postcards to be mailed - being sure to mail them at the end of the day.  You can also put up petitions in this same area. One city that tried this had people standing in line all day just to sign petitions! Petitions were mounted on poles with a picture illustrating the topic. Pens were tied to the poles and the petitions were on clipboards. A local high school group may be interested in taking responsibility for this "exhibit." (Researching and writing the petitions can be very educational.) Have the League of Women Voters or another related group registering people to vote. Invite elected officials to attend events and be available at specific times to discuss issues with citizens. 

More Environmental Projects and Festival Ideas to come……

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