For the past 8 years, HealthLink and Salem State College have collaborated on Earth Day educational events for students and the community. Check out what we did this year.
Mon, April 14, 2008
Earth Day with Salem State: Food, Justice and the Environment
Public welcome! Student research posters on display in Ellison Hall 11 - 1. Movies, panel discussions and guest speakers from the fishing community to farming speak about the true cost of eating choices.
"Food, the Environment, and Justice" is the focus of this year’s Salem State College/HealthLink Earth Day presentations for the community.
Monday April 14 starts off the week-long activities linking health and the environment through research, art, and activism. A Student Poster & Art Competition will be judged by faculty and community members from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Visitors are encouraged to view the posters and speak with the students who created them.
A panel discussion, "Feed Yourself, Feed the Planet: Global Impact of Your Food Choices", will be held at 1:30 featuring a discussion among five concerned people: Farmers’ Market organizer Don Morgan, nutritionist Fiona Barrett, Food Project’s Melissa Dimond, Gloucester Fisherman’s Wives’ spokeswoman Angela SanFelippo and a representative from Chartwell’s which feeds the College. It will be held in the Martin Luther King Jr. Room, Ellison Campus Center from 1:30-3 p.m. The panel will explore such topics as organic foods, composting, the fishing community, community gardens, healthy alternatives to big chain grocery stores, and the environmental advantages of smaller-scale and local agriculture, with a question-and-answer period for the panel. The panel will be moderated by Lynn Nadeau and Jody Howard from HealthLink.
The evening program will be keynoted by Gerry Palano, the Renewable Energy Coordinator at the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources. Palano’s up-to-date comments and slides will show the current state of sustainable agriculture in Massachusetts’ farms, bogs and greenhouses. He will be introduced with remarks by Doug Petersen, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) and former state representative from Marblehead.
Friend of the Earth Awards will be presented to Salem Mayor Kimberly Driscoll and the Cambridge-based Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in the evening program. The UCS spokeswoman, Erika Spanger-Siegfried, will speak on Food and Global Climate Change.
Other events through the week include two showings of the movie "King Corn" about two friends, an acre of corn and the subsidized crop that drives America’s fast-food industry. On Tuesday, April 15 at 11 am, Dave Cooper, an environmental activist from Lexington, Kentucky, will present “The Hidden Destruction of the Appalachian Mountains.” On Wednesday, April 16, visitors can tour the college’s Cat Cove Aquaculture Lab at 92 Fort Avenue from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The tour offers an opportunity to observe aquatic organisms produced and grown for food, restoration, and enhancement. Visitors will learn about the history of the facility and how it evolved.
On Wednesday, April 16, a lecture entitled "Supporting Local Farmers, Buying Local" will be presented by Christine Rasmussen of the Essex County and Merrimack Valley Buy Fresh program.
During the student poster display, there will be tables of representatives from the state and federal government, environmental organizations, activist and watershed protection groups. Attendees can network with environmental professionals, investigate summer- and academic-year internships, and learn about potential jobs as well as opportunities for activism.
Outdoor activities include a three-dimensional exhibit of environmental work and a presentation entitled "The Eco-Friendly Sport of Sea Kayaking: An Inuit Legacy and Wave of the Future." Economics professor Kevin Beckwith will lead a discussion on sea kayaking, its history and origins, the gear paddlers need to get started, and will help those interested connect with other paddlers in the area.
On Friday, April 18, David McCue, chairman and founder of the McCue Corporation of Salem, will deliver a lecture entitled "The Greening of Corporate America: the Economics Behind One Company’s Decision to Go Green". The lecture will be held at 238 Meier Hall from 2-3 p.m.
HealthLink has joined with Salem State College for the last 8 years to present Earth Day activities focusing on the links between human health and the environment.
"This year’s topic is particularly exciting," said HealthLink’s Lynn Nadeau. "Everybody eats! Although we most often think about our food intake as merely a personal choice, there are enormous public impacts in every bite we take. On land to sea, the entire planet is affected by individual choices and public policy."
Salem State Geography Professor John Hayes added, "From the local to the global, humans have dramatically transformed the earth in order to produce food. The growing of crops across our planet has transformed forests, grasslands, and savannas into monoculture agricultural landscapes. Overfishing and fishfarming threaten all sea life. This year’s theme explores the many dimensions of food production, its effects on land and sea, and its impacts on people, from production to consumption. Earth Days will examine what it means to have sustainable food production."
The effects of modern agriculture’' wide use of synthetic fertilizers and chemicals and ever-increasing demands for water, fossil fuels, and land will be explored in the various events of Earth Days. The value of locally-grown food, community gardens, composting, and use of organic farming techniques will be some of the many local actions that hope will be examined in the undergraduate student poster competition, movies, presentations and panel discussions.
For a complete schedule check the Salem State website http://www.salemstate.edu/earthday/
|
