CLAS organizing UI Earth Day Festival set for Saturday, April 22

Several Earth Month celebrations are happening on campus, including a large campus-wide festival is set to take place on the Pentacrest on Earth Day.
Friday, April 14, 2023

By Charlotte Brookins 

April 2023 marks the University of Iowa’s 53rd consecutive year of celebrating Earth Month.  Earth Everyday promotional flyer

This year’s celebration features a variety of events, experiences, and opportunities for people on campus and beyond to enjoy.

The UI Office of Sustainability and the Environment, which is housed in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has been hard at work preparing for Earth Month and the many events on the schedule. In addition to OSE-led events, UI colleges, departments, and student organizations are organizing their own Earth Month events. 

Activities include film screenings, trash cleanups, tree plantings, a recycle runway fashion show, and much more — including the large-campus-wide Earth Everyday festival, happening on Earth Day, Saturday, April 22 from 1 to 4 p.m., on the Pentacrest and inside Macbride Hall.  

“Our partner, Public Space One, is taking the lead on a community art project that will be the feature of the event. There will also be UI and community organizations on site hosting their own art-related activities,” Beth MacKenzie, sustainability program manager, explains.   

Inspired by The LENA Project's Prompt for the Planet event last fall, MacKenzie and the other event organizers wanted emphasize community art and creation. 

“We'll have local artist demonstrations, kid crafts, birds from the UI Raptor Project, a tree seedling giveaway celebrating the UI Literary Grove, nature art, and more,” she added.  

In addition to the festival, the Stanley Museum of Art and the departments of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Geographical and Sustainability Sciences will also host events earlier in the day on Earth Day. There will be no shortage of activities for the community.  

While it’s fun to enjoy Earth Day and the community events that go with it, there are ways to appreciate the planet the other 364 days in a year.  

“Spend more time outside,” MacKenzie says. “Aside from the health benefits of being outdoors, people tend to appreciate the wonder of nature when they see it in person.  We hope that will inspire them to be more thoughtful about the social and environmental impacts of their daily decisions.” 

Check out the full list of Earth Month activities on the Office of Sustainability’s website.

The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers about 70 majors across the humanities; fine, performing and literary arts; natural and mathematical sciences; social and behavioral sciences; and communication disciplines. About 15,000 undergraduate and nearly 2,000 graduate students study each year in the college’s 37 departments, led by faculty at the forefront of teaching and research in their disciplines. The college teaches all Iowa undergraduates through the college's general education program, CLAS CORE. About 80 percent of all Iowa undergraduates begin their academic journey in CLAS. The college confers about 60 percent of the university's bachelor's degrees each academic year.