This year’s MIT Earth Week—held April 21 through April 24—includes a major address by James McCarthy, Chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); an Earth Day Fair; the EcoExpo/Sustainability Summit Poster Session; the MIT Sustainability Summit; and a showing of the film “Our Daily Bread.” MIT Earth Week is planned collaboratively by six groups representing the academic, staff, and student communities at MIT.
Kicking off the week on Tuesday, April 21, is a showing of the film “Our Daily Bread” in building 6-120 at 6:00 p.m. After the film, Jamey Lionette of the South End’s Lionette’s Market will lead a discussion of the film and of his role in the local food system.
On Wednesday, April 22, James McCarthy, AAAS board chairman and Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography at Harvard University, will present a colloquium entitled Reflections on Our Planet and Its Life: Origins and Futures. This event is sponsored by the MIT Energy Initiative and will be held at the Stata Center’s Kirsch Auditorium from 4:15 to 5:45 p.m.
The Earth Day Fair—the trademark event of MIT Earth Week—will be held on Thursday, April 23, and will feature a variety of MIT groups and vendors to let participants know how they can make their lives more sustainable and lend their voices to the growing dialog on environmental issues. This year, the focus of the fair will be Sustainability in Action, with five major themes: energy conservation, food, green purchasing, recycling, and transportation. Come to the Stata Center from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. for food, workshops, displays, giveaways, and entertainment.
A returning favorite is the EcoExpo/Sustainability Summit Poster Session, to be held on Thursday, April 23, in the TSMC lobby of the Stata Center from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. This event provides a showcase for students who are pioneering projects in environmental research and working to make the campus and the world more sustainable.
The Earth Week celebration concludes with the student-run MIT Sustainability Summit: Discovering New Dimensions for Growth, on Friday, April 24, from 9:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. in Walker Memorial. The MIT Sustainability Summit brings together students, business leaders, academics, environmental activists, and public servants to discuss how we can most effectively support each other as we face the opportunities and challenges of transitioning to a sustainable world. This year, through an engaging, innovative panel format, speakers will be challenged to think creatively about shared problems and generate tangible solutions. Discussions will focus on how to progress toward sustainability in a recession, how to measure the success of sustainability practices, and what opportunities for innovation and collaboration in sustainability are emerging.
More information about the week’s events is available at the MIT Earth Week 2009 website.