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Earth Day Home | Stories | Get Involved | Resources

Get Started

Now in its 10th year, WHC's Corporate Lands for Learning program has grown to welcome a wide variety of learners to the corporate habitat—schools, scout groups, senior citizens, master gardeners, at-risk-youth, casual naturalists and university researchers. Contact CLL@wildlifehc.org or 301-588-8994 for help on planning your Earth Day program and year-round educational events.

WHC provides additional links and resources to start your Earth Day projects.

Initiating recycling projects, learning about watersheds or invasive species, and constructing schoolyard gardens are just a few of the many additional ways that students and teachers can participate in Earth Day. All of the following ideas have been used successfully for Earth Day in different communities and cities. Some require having a larger "fair-type" event; others can be done either by themselves or at a larger event. Your team will be the key to what you can do.

Ideas from EnviroLink

  • Clean up and/or restore: Start an annual or seasonal clean-up at your site or in the surrounding communities' rivers, lakes, streams or trails.              
  • Plant Trees or other Native Species: Be sure the species are indigenous to your area. Work with local tree-planting group(s). Remove exotic invasive species. Work with local botanists, biologists, and land owners to determine the scope and needs of each ecosystem. Check with local parks and reserves for problem areas.              
  • Pledges: Have people sign an Earth Day pledge. (see sample below). OR Put up a communal "pledge board" where people can write their environmental pledge for the year ("I will turn off the lights when I leave the room", "I will turn off the water while shaving or brushing my teeth", etc.) To display the pledges, you can have people write their promises on cutout "leaves" which are then placed on either a painted tree poster or onto a 3-D treelike structure.              
  • Host a Speaker or Video: Hold a lecture or workshop at your site with a local botanist, wetland ecologist or state forestor. Present how to's on protecting your local communities natural resources. Present a video on a particular project or subject to help guide and encourage volunteers to sign-up for your next planting!              
  • Contests: For an effective and creative Earth Day, hold a contest: poster, essay, slogans & themes, poetry, photographs, plays, songs, art, public service announcements, etc. 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 notices should announce, 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. Just remember, if you get several hundred essays, someone has to read and judge them.

National Environmental Education Week has links, activities and resources for students and teachers.

  • How Big is Your Carbon Footprint? One of the best ways to provide an effective learning tool for students is to involve them in activities that encourage the responsible use of energy. Using an online Carbon Calculator is a great way for both students and adults to explore the ways in which they use energy on a daily basis. As part of your EE Week activities, consider using a carbon calculator with your students. There are several calculators available online, including one designed for students called SchoolNeutral. Once your students know what there carbon impact is, encourage them to take steps to reduce it and then use the calculator once more to check your savings.

The Earth Day Network provides environmental tips and ideas as well as links to Earth Day events.

  • There are things that each of us can do to make a difference. "Environmental Tips" suggests some of them. The series looks at actions that we can take as individuals in a dozen different areas to help protect our planet.

U.S. EPA provides an Earth Day "Take-Home Kit". 

  • Learn how you and your family can protect the environment every day in lots of ways.

Leave No Trace

Completion of your project or event isn’t the end of your Earth Day adventure. An environmentally friendly clean-up is crucial to your Earth Day experience. It wouldn’t be true to the spirit of Earth Day if we didn’t tread lightly to ensure that there is no evidence of our presence after the event. Here are some things you can do to make sure this last, important Earth Day project is successful: 

1. Assign a special Eco-Team to the task of cleaning up all traces of your project/event.

2. Establish an on-site recycling center to separate your materials as they are thrown out. Be sure your bins are clearly marked. Check with your local recycling center to find out what materials they accept and how materials should be sorted.

3. When serving food, at smaller events, consider using donated plates and cups that can be washed, rather than disposables that will get thrown out.

4. Have plenty of garbage bags on hand to use for clean-up.

5. Remember that cleaning up is only part of your departure plan. Areas that have been torn up need to be restored. Any plants uprooted or trod upon should be re-planted or re-seeded. Stone or wood paths should be surveyed to ensure that they have not been disturbed.

 The Green Life - 10 Ways to Go Green at Work

Ideas for living well and doing good from Sierra magazine

Greener homes are in the spotlight these days, but what about the other places where many of us spent huge chunks of our time--our offices? Some simple changes of habit can save energy and resources at work, and these small steps can be multiplied by persuading the powers-that-be at your workplace to adopt environmentally friendly (and often cost-effective) policies.

1. Be bright about light
Artificial lighting accounts for 44 percent of the electricity use in office buildings. Make it a habit to turn off the lights when you're leaving any room for 15 minutes or more and utilize natural light when you can. Make it a policy to buy Energy Star-rated light bulbs and fixtures, which use at least two-thirds less energy than regular lighting, and install timers or motion sensors that automatically shut off lights when they're not needed.

2. Maximize computer efficiency
Computers in the business sector unnecessarily waste $1 billion worth of electricity a year. Make it a habit to turn off your computer—and the power strip it's plugged into—when you leave for the day. Otherwise, you're still burning energy even if you're not burning the midnight oil. (Check with your IT department to make sure the computer doesn't need to be on to run backups or other maintenance.) During the day, setting your computer to go to sleep automatically during short breaks can cut energy use by 70 percent. Remember, screen savers don't save energy.

Make it a policy to invest in energy-saving computers, monitors, and printers and make sure that old equipment is properly recycled. Look for a recycler that has pledged not to export hazardous e-waste and to follow other safety guidelines. Old computers that still work, and are less than five years old, can be donated to organizations that will refurbish them and find them new homes. (You may even get a tax deduction.)

3. Print smarter
The average U.S. office worker goes through 10,000 sheets of copy paper a year. Make it a habit to print on both sides or use the back side of old documents for faxes, scrap paper, or drafts. Avoid color printing and print in draft mode whenever feasible.

Make it a policy to buy chlorine-free paper with a higher percentage of post-consumer recycled content. Also consider switching to a lighter stock of paper or alternatives made from bamboo, hemp, cotton, or kenaf. Recycle toner and ink cartridges and buy remanufactured ones. According to Office Depot, each remanufactured toner cartridge "keeps approximately 2.5 pounds of metal and plastic out of landfills...and conserves about a half gallon of oil."

4. Go paperless when possible
Make it a habit to think before you print: could this be read or stored online instead? When you receive unwanted catalogs, newsletters, magazines, or junk mail, request to be removed from the mailing list before you recycle the item. Make it a policy to post employee manuals and similar materials online, rather than distribute print copies. They're easier to update that way too.

5. Ramp up your recycling
Make it a habit to recycle everything your company collects. Just about any kind of paper you would encounter in an office, including fax paper, envelopes, and junk mail, can be recycled. So can your old cell phone, PDA, or pager. Make it a policy to place recycling bins in accessible, high-traffic areas and provide clear information about what can and can not be recycled.

6. Close the loop
Make it a policy to purchase office supplies and furniture made from recycled materials.

7. Watch what (and how) you eat
Make it a habit to bring your own mug and dishware for those meals you eat at the office. Make it a policy to provide reusable dishes, silverware, and glasses. Switch to Fair Trade and organic coffee and tea, and buy as much organic and local food as possible for parties and other events. Provide filtering drinking water to reduce bottled-water waste.

8. Rethink your travel
Make it a habit to take the train, bus, or subway when feasible instead of a rental car when traveling on business. If you have to rent a car, some rental agencies now offer hybrids and other high-mileage vehicles. Make it a policy to invest in videoconferencing and other technological solutions that can reduce the amount of employee travel.

9. Reconsider your commute
Make it a habit to carpool, bike, or take transit to work, and/or telecommute when possible. Make it a policy to encourage telecommuting and make it easy for employees to take alternative modes of transportation.

10. Create a healthy office environment
Make it a habit to use nontoxic cleaning products. Brighten up your cubicle with plants, which absorb indoor pollution.