Annual Earth Day celebration to feature live entertainment
Earth Day celebrations will kick off early this year with live entertainment, environmental speakers and grilled cheese sandwiches.
CMU’s 16th annual celebration, part of the Student Environmental Alliance’s efforts to promote custodianship of the Earth, will take place from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday on Warriner Mall.
“It’s a celebration to draw awareness to environmental issues we will be facing in the near future,” said Daniel Cibulka, Freeland senior and SEA member. “It’s also an event where people can just have fun.”
Cibulka said events include environmental speakers from the area, reptile displays and several live bands.
Speakers will discuss everything from overpopulation and the increasing size of landfills to the draining of Great Lakes water.
“One of our speakers will be Thomas Rohrer, one of our environmental studies professors,” Cibulka said. “He will be going over what people as individuals can do to help preserve the environment.”
Matthew Cross, Grand Rapids graduate student, and Patrick Cain, Grass Lake senior, will present a reptile and amphibian display.
The display is one of the more popular events at the Earth Day celebration, they said.
“Usually we bring a lot of species native to Michigan,” Cross said. “We like to give people a better idea of what is living in the area.”
Along with native creatures such as garter snakes and Eastern box turtles, exotics also will be on display, including a Gila monster, a Burmese python, alligators and legless lizards.
The duo also will discuss how animals are introduced into the wild through the pet trade and other environmental issues surrounding reptiles and amphibians.
”We will be talking about how human activity, water pollution, temperature changes and habitat destruction has an effect on reptile and amphibian species,” Cross said. “We’ll also tell people how they can help keep our native species healthy.”
Grilled cheese sandwiches will be another part of the celebration.
Ashlie Simons, Marine City senior and SEA treasurer, said the sandwiches are a tradition the group started in 2003.
“We needed something we could give people in exchange for donations,” she said. “We wanted a food that was easy to make, inexpensive and vegetarian friendly.”
Also in honor of Earth Day, the Isabella County Recycling Center, 4208 E. River Road, will accept yard waste for free on Saturday.
“It’s something we’ve been doing for quite a few years now,” said Cary Pauquette-Schalm, an environmental education specialist for the center. “We do it to promote Earth Day as well as the recycling center. People can see where we are and how easy it is to recycle.”
Pauquette-Schalm said this is the only time yard waste is accepted for free, and the offer usually brings in a pretty good crowd.
“Last year we had around 450 cars come through last year,” she said. “The average person brought in about a truckload.”
