Once again, Texas A&M University will be a major participant in Earth Day Texas, a three-day event set for April 20-22 at Fair Park in Dallas, with numerous academic departments and speakers participating in projects and programs that impact the environment. Last year, more than 100,000 people attended the event.
Earth Day Texas, billed as the world’s largest environmental experience, provides a forum for sharing the latest discoveries, policies, products and corporate practices that are shaping the world. This year the event will feature 900 exhibitors and 260 speakers from a wide variety of government agencies, academic institutions, businesses, environmental organizations and speakers during the Earth Day Texas festival.
Texas A&M is the largest educational exhibitor for the third consecutive year. Texas Aggies continue to increase their participation in Earth Day Texas and are able to showcase diverse research and innovation, as well as community partnerships and outreach initiatives.
“Texas A&M is again a major player at Earth Day Texas, and the Aggies are poised to take center stage,” says Casey Oliver, regional manager with the Provost Office of Texas A&M’s Public Partnership & Outreach division.
“We’ve been working together all year with colleges, agencies and departments, and we are eager to show the world what makes Texas A&M unique and how Aggies are transforming education through innovation and action.”
As a major partner of Earth Day Texas, Texas A&M and its affiliates will be well-represented at the event, with booths, speakers and interactive displays from the School of Public Health, College of Architecture, Texas A&M AgriLife and others.
As part of the Earth Day celebration on the Texas A&M campus, a free showing of the film “Straws” will be shown on April 20, at 4 p.m. in Rudder Theatre. The film depicts how a Texas A&M Sea Grant student, Christine Figgener, found a sea turtle in the wild with a straw wedged in its nose and her efforts to reduce the use of straws and other harmful plastic objects that can affect sea life.
What started in 2011 as an outdoor event spanning five blocks of Flora Street in Dallas’ Arts District grew to occupy approximately one million square feet of indoor and outdoor event space in Dallas’ historic Fair Park. Dallas real estate leader Trammel Crow was a key figure in Texas Earth Day events.
Earth Day, established in 1970, is considered the birth of the environmental movement.
Gaylord Nelson, a U.S. senator from Wisconsin, was inspired to start Earth Day after he witnessed a massive oil spill in 1969 off the California coast. His goal was to get people thinking and energized about the environment, the effects of water and air pollution and other issues impacting Earth.
The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, was a huge success and eventually led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Act.
Earth Day Texas is free and open to the public. For more about Earth Day Texas, including daily schedules, events, booths, displays and other key information, go to the Earth Day Texas website.
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Media contact: Casey Oliver at (817) 797-0671 or coliver@tamu.edu or Keith Randall, News & Information Services, at (979) 845-4644 or keith-randall@tamu.edu
