Earth Month 2024
Earth Month 2024
Exploring Earth's Past, Protecting its Future
April 2024
Dive into Earth Month at the Paleontological Research Institution and Museum of the Earth! Join us as we celebrate our planet with an array of engaging activities and insightful explorations throughout April.
As stewards of Earth, we're committed to addressing pressing environmental issues. This Earth Month, we're discuss the Earth’s past and it’s future climate change with a series of thought-provoking activities designed to spark conversation and inspire meaningful action. From virtual workshops to in person events at our venues in Ithaca, NY, there's something for everyone eager to make a difference and learn about the Earth around them.
In addition, don't miss our special pop-up exhibit shedding light on the pervasive issue of microplastics. Explore the impact of these tiny pollutants on our ecosystems and discover what we can do to mitigate their effects. Join us this Earth Month as we come together to learn, engage, and take meaningful steps toward a more sustainable future. Together, let's make a positive impact on our planet!
Most programs for this event this year are offered free of charge, but please consider contributing to our educational programs so that we can continue to offer resources and information to our community.
2024 Calendar of Events
Science in the Virtual Pub
Why We Should All Know and Care about Antarctica
Thursday, April 11, 2024 @ 7:00 pm EST - Virtual
It has been said that visiting Antarctica is the closest you can come on Earth to visiting another planet. It is a place of striking beauty, extreme conditions, amazing geology and oceanography, and abundant and distinctive wildlife. Antarctica is also changing rapidly, in complex and still incompletely understood ways, and these changes may have huge impacts on the entire Earth. PRI Director Warren Allmon recently returned from a trip to Antarctica, and will share some highlights, as well as an overview of current scientific understanding of its changing environment and why it matters.
Dr. Warren Allmon, Director, The Paleontological Research Institution
Saving the Whales Who Can Help Save Us
Thursday, April 25, 2024 @ 7:00 pm EST - Virtual
North Atlantic right whales are a critically endangered species with fewer than 360 individuals remaining. The biggest threats to their survival are accidental and regionally specific while the potential benefits of their recovery are global. Learn what Whale and Dolphin Conservation and their partners are doing to reduce human impacts on this species and what you can do to help ensure a future for a species whose survival is inextricably linked to our own.
Learn more about WDC North America at: https://whales.org/..
Regina Asmutis‑Silvia, Executive Director, Whale and Dolphin Conservation North America
Earth Day Festival on the Ithaca Commons hosted by Cornell Cooperative Extension
Saturday, April 20, 2024 @ 12:00 pm to 5:00 pm EST
Visit members of our Climate Team at the 2024 Earth Day Festival on the Ithaca Commons, April 20 from 12-5 pm! Come celebrate your community’s efforts to address climate change and other environmental issues with a family-friendly celebration featuring lots of hands-on activities, food, music, free raffles, and more.
Learn more about this event.
Tree “Buds” Weekly Phenology Hikes at Cayuga Nature Center
Weekly on Monday afternoons
April 22, 2024 to Oct. 28, 2024 | 3:00pm - 4:00pm
Be our tree "buds" and join our weekly citizen science walk to observe and collect data on seasonal changes in trees.
Rain or shine, we will monitor when buds break, leaves emerge, flowers bloom, fruits ripen, and when leaves change color and fall. We send the data to the USA National Phenology Network, which makes it available to researchers who are trying to understand the mechanisms behind seasonal changes and how they are influenced by a changing climate. We have been collecting this data for 10 years!
You’ll learn how to make these types of observations, and how to do this at home or in your neighborhood.
This event is free and everyone is welcome to attend. We'll meet in front of the Cayuga Nature Center lodge at the beginning of the program.
Spring BioBlitz
April 26-April 29
Please join us from wherever you are in the Cayuga Lake basin! We are calling all nature observers to document the life around us using the iNaturalist app. This event is part of our series of seasonal bioblitzes, to help document the diversity of life in our region over time as the climate and other factors change.
You don’t need to be an expert to participate. Create an account on iNaturalist and add the app to your smart phone. Then photograph wild things, or record their sounds, and upload them. Or use a regular camera and upload photos later on your computer. If you don’t know what you’re seeing, no worries – the app will help identify the organisms you observe. And a community of other observers can help you refine the identification later as well.
Pop-up Exhibit at Museum of the Earth
The Problem(s) with Plastic
Saturday, April 20, 2024 -Tuesday, April 30, 2024
Plastics are ubiquitous in our lives, from the packaging of our food to the fibers in our clothes and even to the particles in our bodies. They pervade nearly every ecosystem on Earth, and their production and disposal are responsible for damage to climate, wildlife, and human health. But people around the world are increasingly looking for solutions to this urgent environmental problem, and there are steps every individual can take to do their part. In honor of Earth Day, join us this weekend at the Museum of the Earth for a small temporary exhibition, "The Problem(s) with Plastic," dedicated to the role of plastic pollution (especially in the oceans), and what you can do to mitigate the negative impacts associated with them .
