Earth Day and Social Media
Eric Webb | @EricWebb434 What did you do for Earth Day? If you are still itching to get your green on, check out these events. Many last all month and are a fantastic way to get involved in your local community through Social Media.
Earth Day began in 1970 at the hands of Wisconsin Senator, Gaylord Nelson. This grassroots movement organized itself through newspapers and telephone calls; 20 million people took to demonstrating in support of a clean, sustainable Earth. Nowadays, emails and social media are at the center of the Earth Day scene and connect as many as 200 million people across the globe every April. Social media is an awesome way to get involved in Earth Day and there are a lot of great features you can take advantage of to show your support.
1. Picnic for the Planet - This program, hosted by The Nature Conservancy, let you attend or host a picnic to celebrate Earth Day. An interactive map shows picnics across the nation that you could show up to and take part of the festivities. Or, if you you thought you could throw an even better picnic, you could host your own. Even though most of the picnics happened yesterday, we think this is a fantastic effort and they are still accepting donations.
2. Earth Day Challenge - Groupon and Crowdrise have teamed up for the 2012 Earth Day Challenge. Pick from a list of charities and donate as much as you'd like. The fundraiser goes until May 15th and the organization who receives the most donations will get $25,000!
3. Nasa Earth Day Video Competition - This is NASA's 2nd year doing the Earth Day Video Competition and it's a really cool idea. Submissions open April 22 and last through May 31. NASA asks participants to create a 1-2 minute video that "captures what you find inspiring and important about the unique view and understanding of Earth provided by NASA science." The winner gets a behind-the-scenes pass to a January 2013 rocket launch.
4. Mobilize the Earth Rally - What did you do for Earth Day? On April 22nd Earth Day on the National Mall was streamed live online. The event, put on by Earth Day Network, included environmentalist speakers as well as musical performances by Cheap Trick and other great bands. Keep an eye out for videos from the event at www.earthday.org.
5. A Billion Acts of Green - Also put on by Earth Day Network, this event extends past April 22 and they are hoping to reach 1 billion pledges of going green this year. You can go to their website and share with everybody what it is you're doing to be more energy efficient and how your keeping the Earth clean.
