School of Earth and Sustainability Celebrates Earth Day with Student Showcase, Resilience World Café and Keynote Speaker

Image

The School of Earth and Sustainability will hold it’s annual Earth Day Celebration on Wednesday, April 17 from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m in the John W. Olver Design Building atrium. The theme for the celebration is Hope and Reslience and it will feature a showcase of undergraduate and graduate student projects that cover such topics as climate change, environmental solutions, green design and sustainability.

At 11:30 a.m., Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy and School of Earth and Sustainability director Curt Griffin will give welcoming remarks before Susanne Moser’s keynote address, “Hope in the Face of Climate Change: The Real New Deal.” Moser is a geographer, independent scholar and consultant whose work focuses on adaptation to climate change, resilience, science-policy interactions and effective climate change communication.

At 1 p.m., Paperbark literary magazine will host a Resilience World Café, guiding participants in identifying their strengths and creativity relative to unprecedented challenges and uncertainty. The World Café model combines conversations that matter with writing and drawing. A collaboration among the School of Earth and Sustainability, College of Humanities and UMass Libraries, Paperbark is published annually with a focus on the environmental humanities, sustainable living and the promotion of literary and fine arts.

On Thursday, April 18, the annual UMass Amherst Earth Day Festival will celebrate sustainability on the Goodell Lawn from 12 noon to 4 p.m. Student groups and others from the greater Pioneer Valley will be on hand to share knowledge and passion about their sustainability projects.