Fresno State will observe Earth Day Saturday, April 20, with events both on and off campus: a Cigarette Butt Clean Up at the university and activities for children including a poetry contest off campus.

The Chemistry and Geology clubs will hold an Earth Day activity for kids 10 a.m.-noon, Saturday, April 20 at Kuppa Joy Coffee House in Clovis (518 Clovis Ave).

Keeping with this year’s Earth Day theme, “Our Earth: Handle with Care,” the clubs will be showing the kids how the upper layers of the Earth’s crust filters water as it travels through the different layers to the water table. Kids will have the opportunity to make their own filtration bottle, mimicking this natural phenomenon.

In addition, many of the Chemist Celebrates Earth Day poetry contest entries will be featured at this event.

The Chemistry Earth Day celebration will continue 10 a.m.-noon, Saturday, April 27 with a lecture by Dr. Stephen Rodemeyer, Fresno State chemistry professor emeritus and former director of the Smittcamp Family Honors College, in the Science 2 Building, Room 109 (on San Ramon Avenue just east of Maple Avenue).

The lecture, sponsored by the Chemistry club and the local section of the American Chemical Society, is titled, “Moveable Feasts: Incredible Journeys of the Foods We Eat.”

Recognition for students who participated in the Chemistry Olympiad and the Chemists Celebrate Earth Day poetry contest will be announced preceding the presentation. Winners from the poetry contest will advance onto the American Chemical Society national poetry contest.

For more information about Chemistry activities, contact Dr. Melissa Golden, Earth Day coordinator, 559.278.6822.

Organizers of the cigarette butt clean-up 9-11 a.m., Saturday, April 20, Project IMPACT 4 Life, a group of Fresno State students concerned with second-hand smoke exposure who advocate for a smoke-free campus, hope to raise awareness of the detrimental impacts of tobacco products on health and the environment.

Student club officer Swarnpreet Kaur, a senior public health major from Caruthers, urges other Fresno State students to volunteer and take a stand against second-hand smoke.

“A naked eye can’t see whether the air you breathe is clean, but our lungs can definitely tell the difference,” she said. “Would you let someone kill your lungs with second-hand smoke? This is your campus, you decide.”

Volunteers can meet at the Memorial Fountain by the Kennel Bookstore at 9 a.m., where they will be briefly trained and assigned to an area of campus to pick up butts and litter. Volunteers will be provided with gloves and bags and are formed into separate clean-up crews. Project IMPACT 4 Life’s mascot “Ciggy Butts,” a giant cigarette butt, will also be present during the clean-up.

A drawing for prizes will be held after the pick-up at 10:45 a.m. Volunteers gets an entry  plus an additional entry if they bring a friend to help with the pick-up.

Activities will also be held the following week, April 22-26, including a cigarette butt display in the Henry Madden Library. Students and visitors can submit an entry to guess how many butts were collected. One winner will receive a $50 Visa gift card at the April 26 event, where the actual number of cigarette butts collected will be displayed at an informational table in the Free Speech Area. Students will also petition for a smoke-free campus at this event.

For more information about the clean up, contact Melanie Ruvalcaba, IMPACT Program Manager at Melanie.Ruvalcaba@lung.org.

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(Copy by University Communications student news assistants Alejandra Garcia and Samantha Gibson.)