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The Earth Day theme is “Invest in Our Planet,” and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) is continuing its commitment to raising public awareness of actions both adults and children can take to help protect Alabama’s environment and Planet Earth.
Earth Day is celebrated internationally each April 22, bringing attention to the need for all people to do their part in looking after our planet. In the weeks leading up to Earth Day, ADEM staff traveled to schools and other public venues to help educate and encourage responsible environment stewardship.
Friday, ADEM joined the Montgomery Zoo and the Mann Wildlife Learning Museum for their Earth Day Safari for schoolchildren. More than two dozen ADEM staff set up booths at the zoo and interacted with children and adults, providing them information on a host of environmental topics. Those topics included air quality, asthma, recycling, fish tissue testing, brownfields, waste disposal and more. More than 2,000 children and parents attended, zoo officials estimated.
“Earth Day is a tradition we look forward to each year,” ADEM Director Lance LeFleur said. “It’s an opportunity to engage with the community, provide educational information on environmental matters, and encourage people to take an active role in protecting the environment.”
Part of the Earth Day tradition in Alabama is a showcase of blue and green – Earth Day’s colors – in downtown Montgomery. As in past years, the Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA) buildings will be lit up in blue and green as part of the partnership between ADEM and the RSA to increase public awareness of Earth Day.
Next Thursday, April 27, ADEM will join the City of Selma, local schools and E3 Solutions for an Earth Day Recycling Festival at Selma’s Bloch Park. The event, from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., will include presentations on recycling, scrap tires, brownfield redevelopment, meteorology, waste disposal and asthma, as well as games and activities for children.
This year is the 53rd anniversary of the first Earth Day. Earthday.org is the international organization behind Earth Day. According to the organization, more than 1 billion people participate in Earth Day activities each year.
In addition to the activities surrounding Earth Day, ADEM’s YouTube channel features a series of videos of ADEM personnel explaining and demonstrating key functions of their work in protecting Alabama’s environment. The videos cover a variety of topics, such as air monitoring, fish tissue sampling, water quality and recycling.
To watch the videos on ADEM’s YouTube channel, Click here.
