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Celebrating Earth Day at UNH
At UNH, we view sustainability as a collective commitment to human dignity for all people and ecological integrity in all places. We understand that solving the climate crisis is one piece of sustainability's interconnected puzzle.
Every year on and around April 22, UNH joins people and organizations around the world to celebrate Earth Day, which marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.
Get engaged in local, regional and global initiatives and take action!
EARTHDAY.ORG’s mission is to diversify, educate and activate the environmental movement worldwide. EARTHDAY.ORG is the world’s largest recruiter to the environmental movement, working with more than 75,000 partners in over 190 countries to drive positive action for our planet.
2023 Earth Day events on and around campus
APRIL 19, 2023
9 a.m - 5 p.m.
MUB 3rd Floor
Part of UNH's Undergraduate Research Conference (URC), the University-wide Sustainability Research Symposium invites students each spring from all disciplines to present research on a broad range of sustainability challenges – addressing environmental stewardship, social well-being, and economic vitality to meet our present needs while ensuring the ability of future generations to meet their needs – and may use the framework of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals as the definition of sustainability. Undergraduates doing sustainability research who present at this Symposium are automatically considered for the new UNH Sustainability Awards program. Learn more.
APRIL 21, 2023
3:30-4 p.m.
Hamilton Smith Hall
Join the College of Liberal Arts for their annual Earth Day Celebration. Program to be determined each year. Held in the Hamilton Smith courtyard, or atrium in case of rain.
APRIL 21, 2023
2-6 p.m.
Great Hall Lawn
The second annual Earth Day Jam Fest will take place this year on April 21 from 2-6pm hosted by Organic Garden Club. This event will involve lots of clubs, some vendors, speakers, climate education, and live music! It will be outside on the Great Hall lawn. Let’s make some noise for the Earth!
APRIL 22, 2023
9 a.m.-2 p.m.
The Forest Society is celebrating Earth Day and a healthy planet by empowering our visitors and locals to give a little love to the mountain and lakes by helping in spring clean-up effort. Join our staff and members of our volunteer Forest Society Conservation Corps for a DIY cleanup hike. This is a DIY Challenge - No Registration Required. Just Hike Your Own Hike, and do a little work on your way! The event will take place from 9am - 2pm, but there is no need to stay the whole time - create your own adventure!
Learn more & get directions.
APRIL 22, 2023
10 a.m.-2 p.m.
66 Main Street Parking Lot
The Town of Durham is holding its 2023 Earth Day commemoration event - a fun, informative time for everyone. Come learn about resources for EVs, community power, home energy and rebates, composting, sustainable gardening, sustainable and more!
2022 Earth Day events on and around campus
APRIL 19, 2022
3-5 p.m.
Civic and Community Engagement held an outdoor tie-dye workshop to celebrate Earth Day! New techniques to creatively reimagine and repurpose your clothes were taught by Jennifer Moore, creator of the sustainable style blog Recovergirl. Fabric squares were provided to dye to make a unique creation to take home!
APRIL 20, 2022
9 a.m - 2:30 p.m.
MUB 330/332
Part of UNH's Undergraduate Research Conference (URC), the University-wide Sustainability Research Symposium invites students each spring from all disciplines to present research on a broad range of sustainability challenges – addressing environmental stewardship, social well-being, and economic vitality to meet our present needs while ensuring the ability of future generations to meet their needs – and may use the framework of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals as the definition of sustainability. Undergraduates doing sustainability research who present at this Symposium are automatically considered for the new UNH Sustainability Awards program. Learn more.
On the occasion of Earth Day 2022, this Changemaker Speaker Series webinar is built on the premise that the world needs urgent action to address the climate crisis, and that government and the business sectors, because of their scale and influence, must be major drivers of solutions in the next pivotal decade to 2030. While the current reality demands that both business and government make radical changes, the real power will lie in the nexus of the two sectors, with innovative collaboration between government and business to drive change on the scale needed. This event explored examples of cross sector collaboration on climate, as well as opportunities for greater partnership to accelerate climate action. Learn more about our speakers.
APRIL 21, 2022
3:30-4 p.m.
Thompson Hall Lawn
The College of Liberal Arts annual Earth Day Celebration was held on the Thompson Hall lawn. Three presentations included:
NIMBY and the Durham Oil Refinery Proposal
Talk by Kurk Dorsey, Department of History
Many people know that Durham and UNH community members rallied to halt a planned oil refinery in the Seacoast in a standard example of not-in-my-backyard activism, but not as many have considered a key element of what happened next.
Art and Sustainability: Plastic Design Lab Project
Exhibit and talk by Ciara Wright, Department of Art and Art History
Through the cycle of sorting, granulating and reprocessing plastic into a raw material, the Plastics Design Lab investigated the use of recycled plastic as a medium for casting, modeling, 3d printing and more, ultimately transforming a substance culturally regarded as low-end and disposable into a material of both aesthetic and functional value.
Why You Should Sacrifice to Demeter
Talk by Sadie Marston ‘24, classics and anthropology majors
Integrating the beliefs of ancient cultures can be helpful to how we engage with ecology today. In this talk, Sadie Marston reflected on the mythos surrounding Demeter, the Greek goddess of grain and fertility, and, by looking at the values she represented, connects her to the ideals of Earth Day.
APRIL 22, 2022
1-3:30 p.m.
College Woods and the UNH Office of Woodlands & Natural Areas need you! This special forest on the UNH campus is being overrun with glossy buckthorn, a non-native invasive shrub that crowds out native plants. Participants hand-pulled buckthorn to help improve the health of College Woods and helping create an arboretum area. People learned how to identify and remove Glossy Buckthorn and why invasives are a problem. Learn how to get involved and volunteer year-round.
APRIL 23, 2022
2-6 p.m.
MUB 162/164
Are you interested in international relations? Environmental issues and climate science? Participants joined us for a day of exciting activities, prizes and an international catered dinner! Reduce global emissions before the year 2100 by utilizing Climate Interactive's unique systems thinking processes. WM and Climate Action NH visited us to talk about local and regional opportunities to get involved and make an impact, small or large, in your community.
World Climate Simulation is a simplified international climate change debate that employs the same simulation model as the United Nations. Each participant took on the role of a delegate representing a certain nation bargaining bloc, or in some situations, an interest group, as the facilitator (Dr. Cameron Wake, Josephine A. Lamprey Professor in Climate and Sustainability) played the role of a UN leader. Everyone worked together in their individual positions to create a global agreement that effectively stems the most damaging results of climate change.
UNH TRIO SSS, Sustainability Institute, WM, LCV
APRIL 23, 2022
Civic & Community Engagement held service projects to celebrate Earth Day! They hosted a beach clean up at Seacoast Science Center and did spring cleaning and landscaping at the Freedom Café of Durham. Learn more about how to volunteer year-round!
Earth Day 2021 Events
APRIL 21, 2021
Join Michael Swack and Eric Hangen of the Center for Impact Finance (CIF) at the Carsey School of Public Policy for a discussion on methods of bringing clean energy to low-income communities through community-based financing.
Michael Swack serves as the Director of CIF and a pioneer in the community-development financing, microfinancing, and sustainable energy financing fields. Eric Hangen serves as a Senior Research Fellow at the Carsey School and principal of I Squared Community Development Consulting, which provides strategic planning, market research, program evaluation, and financial modeling consulting to nonprofits worldwide.
A timely topic for these turbulent times! Creating a sustainable future demands navigating uncharted territory to address highly complex challenges and to work across silos and sectors to develop bold, effective, sustainable solutions. Best-selling author, entrepreneur, and CEO Margaret Heffernan will draw from her latest award-nominated book, Uncharted, which highlights people and organizations who aren’t paralyzed and daunted by uncertainty. Session includes Heffernan’s keynote and dialog with business leaders.
A program of the Changemaker Collaborative, the Sustainability Institute's partnership with the Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics and the Carsey School of Public Policy.
The College of Liberal Arts' celebrated with a half-hour program that included a musical performance, a social science talk and a literary reading.
- Jacques Lee Wood, UNH resident artist and cellist, performed “Eleventh Hour,” a short composition by Lori Dobbins, UNH professor of music, written in response to the environmental crises that have put us just 100 seconds away from catastrophe on the DoomsdayClock.
- Lawrence Hamilton, UNH professor of sociology, summarized his research around perceptions and attitudes toward climate change science, work that has implications for our societal will to address the causes of climate change.
- Jaed Coffin, writer and UNH assistant professor of English, read from a literary text on the theme of Earth Day.
Sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts.
APRIL 22, 2021
Saul O Sidore Memorial Lecture Series
This event highlighted the power of storytelling and oral traditions in sharing knowledge within Indigenous communities. Anne Jennison, an Abenaki storyteller and UNH alumna, has been telling Native American stories and teaching throughout New England for over three decades. Louise Profeit-LeBlanc, a Traditional Storyteller from the Nacho Nyak Dun First Nation of the Yukon Territory in Northern Canada, is founder of the Yukon International Storytelling Festival and the Society of Yukon Artists of Native Ancestry. Hosted by the UNH Center for Humanities.
APRIL 22, 2021
QUESTION: What do Earth Day and Hip-Hop have in common? ANSWER: Not nearly as much as they should!
Featuring:
- Dr. John D. Aber, distinguished ecologist, University Professor and former UNH Provost whose career began with the very first Earth Day in 1970. John's talk is titled: BEING PART OF HISTORY ON EARTH DAY 1970: IT WASN’T THE BIGGEST EVENT IN TOWN
- Dr. Thomas RaShad Easley, Assistant Dean of Community and Inclusion at the Yale School of the Environment, Professor and accomplished Hip-Hop artist. Dr. Easley spoke about: RELATIONSHIPS, HIP-HOP AND FORESTRY: THINKING ABOUT DIVERSITY IN THE ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Together, they helped us look back over the 51 years of environmental history since the first Earth Day and then looked ahead towards a future where racial justice and Earth stewardship can be recognized as a common goal. Sponsored by UNH's Earth Systems Research Center and the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space.
