News from: Oakland Public Works
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 13, 2020
50+ home based and online ideas for the 50th Earth Day
Oakland Earth Day daily offerings for sheltered-in-place
Oakland, CA – April 2020 marks the 26th annual Oakland Earth Day, and the 50th nationwide anniversary of Earth Day. Oakland has a storied history of volunteers pitching in by the thousands to clean, green, and beautify the City. Although the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic prevents gathering in person like when one in ten Americans did on that first Earth Day, or like Oaklanders have traditionally done to volunteer, the Oakland community is still organizing from home to take actions for the Earth.
Oakland Public Works is promoting 50+ home-based and online ideas in honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day at www.oaklandearthday.org. In the spirit of Earth Month, City of Oakland is highlighting ideas from this list through daily social media posts aimed at engaging Oaklanders to take part in Earth celebration, education, and stewardship from home.
Ideas are grouped across eight broad categories: Citizen/Community Science, Climate Change, Community, Education, Home Health, Nature, Material Consumption and Waste Reduction, and Water Conservation and Protection.
With shelter-in-place ordinances keeping people in their homes, the Earth Day campaign is emphasizing home health, household resiliency, and emergency preparedness. The goal is connecting Earth Day actions to holistic health: what’s healthy for the home is also healthy for the environment. The public will find information on indoor air quality, resources for abating building hazards, and behavioral tips and consumer information to keep toxins out of homes and home use products. Exterior home health is also addressed with many tips for managing defensible space against wildfires and maintaining healthy yards and gardens.
Teachers, students, and parents will find environmental educational resources to help sustain and support learning from home while schools are shut and shifting towards online education. Many of the educational offerings also have general appeal and accessibility through books, interactive learning activities, and video streaming.
Other ideas presented will help the public enjoy and engage with nature at home, contribute to crowd-sourced scientific endeavors, implement water, energy, waste, and money saving practices at home, and access community resources for COVID-19 relief and environmental grants, jobs, and neighborhood organizing. There’s something for everyone in the offerings and the ideas carry real and immediate impact as well as longer term benefits to the environment and to the participants, at a time when the public and the Earth need it most.
Visit www.oaklandearthday.org for complete resource listings