Celebrate Earth Day 2021
April 22, 2021
The first Earth Day in 1970 occurred a few months after the first Apollo landing (1969). NASA and the Apollo program helped raise public awareness of the environment by offering a new perspective of Earth. Views of Earth hanging in space as a singular home for all humanity were first generated by the Apollo 8 crew when they made their pioneering orbit of the Moon and captured the famous “Earthrise” photo. Subsequent lunar missions have also made an impact, especially the “Blue Marble” photo from Apollo 17 that NASA often uses to describe Earth as an “isolated ecosystem floating in space.”
Earthday.org will have its second Earth Day Live digital event here at 12:00 p.m. EDT/11:00 a.m. CDT. Workshops, panel discussions, and special performances will focus on Restore Our Earth™ — covering natural processes, emerging green technologies, and innovative thinking to restore the world’s ecosystems.
The Lunar and Planetary Institute will host a special Virtual Exploration Experiences with Planetary Scientists (VEEPS) family-friendly event on Saturday, April 24 at 3:00 p.m. CDT. Dr. Rusty Low, a senior scientist at the Institute of Global Environmental Strategies in Arlington, VA, will describe how we can identify, report, and mitigate mosquito breeding sites on the landscape. For more information, visit https://www.lpi.usra.edu/education/events/VEEPS/.
