Earth Day Celebration

 

Haywood Community College will celebrate Earth Day on Monday, April 24 from 9:30 a.m. until Noon. The public is invited to this free event. The event features a community partner showcase where HCC’s Environmental Science students will represent local community partners to teach guests about their work and how others can get involved. HCC wants to help spread the word about how you can positively impact the environment and what community resources are available.

Attendees will receive a passport to encourage visits to the booths and create their own impactful takeaway about how they can better support our environment. Community partners will be shoulder-to-shoulder with HCC’s students showcasing their information at the booths with immersive learning activities such as creating an upcycled clay steppingstone, building paper flowers to learn about pollinators, viewing live specimens with microscopes and much more!

HCC’s Earth Day Celebration Schedule is as follows:

  • 9:30 a.m.- Bird Walk
  • 10:00 a.m.- Noon-Community Partner Showcase presented by HCC Students
  • 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.- The Spotted Banana Food Truck available for food purchases
  • Noon - Tree Walk

On-site teaching demonstrations will include:

  • Save pollinators and remove invasive species, Spriggly’s Beescaping
  • Eat and buy local food, Haywood Historic Farmers Market
  • Build a community for action, Environmental Action Community
  • View ten electric vehicles, WNC Blue Ridge Electric Vehicle Club
  • Centrifuge invertebrates and see them with a microscope, Haywood County Soil and Water Conservation
  • See how climate data is collected from space, Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute
  • Learn why wildlife crossings matter, Defenders of Wildlife 
  • Dissect a trout, NC Wildlife Resources Commission
  • Learn about water and air quality, NC Department of Environmental Quality, and Haywood Waterways
  • Watch a live art demonstration, Haywood Arts Council
  • Learn the value of trees and soil, Hemlock Restoration Initiative, Mountain Research Station
  • Learn how to recycle and see a foam recycling demonstration, Paul Allen/Haywood County Solid Waste/Greenworks Asheville

Susan Roberts, one of HCC’s Biology instructors and the Environmental Science Club leader shares that “this event is my absolute favorite community teaching event with a focus on learning for our students and the community. How can we make a difference in protecting all the places we love? What can we do? Will it matter? The answer is yes, it will matter, and this event can inform visitors about what they can do to make a difference in Haywood County.”

Events will take place in the Hemlock Building auditorium lobby with display tables and presentations which the SandCastle Foundation and HCC Foundation partially funded. Additional resource partners and activities will also be onsite to make this event impactful for our community. The event’s purpose centered around informing participants on how to join local partners to positively impact the environment.