Earth Day Festival returns with education for families

Jeff Elkins, The Norman Transcript, Okla.
·3 min read

Apr. 19—Norman's Earth Day Festival is back for its 19th annual celebration with environmental education, live music and food trucks at Andrews Park.

Following two cancellations due to COVID-19, Norman's celebration of a healthy habitat and natural resources will take place from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday at Andrews Park, 201 W Daws St. The festival will be hosted in partnership with the Pioneer Library System.

Around 50 exhibitors are expected at this year's festival, in addition to hands-on activities and demonstrations.

Food trucks and a beer garden, a new addition, will be on site. The Oklahoma Flute Circle and musicians Mike Hosty and Jah Ruba will perform.

Michele Loudenback, Norman's environmental and sustainability manager, said the festival aims to educate the community on how to better protect earth's air, water, soil, forests, wildlife and all natural resources.

Kids will learn about the backyard wildlife habitat and have opportunities to create art from recycled items.

"There will be tables where people can talk to the Cleveland County Master Gardeners, and the Sierra Club is handing out pollinator plant seeds," Loudenback said.

Oklahoma Blue Thumb will have a water testing booth. Stepwaters Dojo of Norman has an Aikido martial arts demonstration ready for attendees.

The Pioneer Library System partnered with Eileen Garvin, author of the national bestselling book "The Music of Bees," to set up a hands-on pollinator activity station.

The Pioneer Library System Reads initiative annually identifies activities and efforts going on in the community and partners with those events already taking place. This year, the topic is the environment.

Ashley Welke, director of community engagement and learning at Pioneer Library System, said the program brings people together to talk about a relevant topic in the community and explore it.

Highlighting Garvin, her book and pollinators is part of that initiative, and Earth Day embodies the topic.

"It's all for the goal of bringing people together, sparking dialogue and hopefully showing people that they can make small, individual changes that have a large collective impact but also give them information, tools and resources if they want to advocate on a greater scale," Welke said.

Welke said the City of Norman has a long history of Earth Day celebrations, and now seemed like the perfect time to partner for an event.

"What a great way to partner with them and give the residents of Norman an opportunity to hear from this author," Welke said.

The library system will have copies of Garvin's book to give away and will have information about a pollinator discussion planned for May 10 and facilitated by James Hung, heritage biologist with the Oklahoma Biological Survey and assistant professor of biology at the University of Oklahoma.

Welcome bags will be handed out to the first 1,000 arrivals at the Earth Day welcome booth.

Jeff Elkins covers business, living and community stories for The Transcript. Reach him at jelkins@normantranscript.com or at @JeffElkins12 on Twitter.