Each April, we celebrate Earth Day, a time to raise awareness of the various environmental challenges we face if we want to sustain our way of life. But where did Earth Day get its start?
Earth Day was first celebrated on April 22, 1970. It was the work of Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin. Nelson was motivated to action by seeing the aftermath of a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California, the year before.
Inspired by the student anti-war movement, he realized that if he could infuse that energy with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution, it would force environmental protection onto the national political agenda.
That first celebration, which took the energy of the student anti-war movement and melded it with raising public consciousness of the threats of air and water pollution, led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts.
Coincidentally, the day before Earth Day, April 21, marks the birthday of John Muir, one of the original naturalists, who founded the Sierra Club. Muir was born in Scotland and his parents immigrated to the United States when he was young. They bought a farm in Wisconsin, but Muir soon found himself wandering the American West, admiring the landscape. Various travels took him across the continent, but he grew particularly attached to the Yosemite Valley in California. His advocacy was largely responsible for its preservation as a national park. Check out Muir’s writings on nature and this detailed biography to learn more about the origins of environmentalism.
Every year, the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom tracks books that are challenged by members of the community, banned from libraries or are otherwise restricted in libraries. The organization recently released the top ten books (or series) that were most challenged last year, included below, all of which can be found at Queens Library.
Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” by Sherman Alexie
“Thirteen Reasons Why,” by Jay Asher
“Fifty Shades of Grey,” by E. L. James
“And Tango Makes Three,” by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
“The Kite Runner,” by Khaled Hosseini
“Looking for Alaska,” by John Green
Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
“The Glass Castle,” by Jeannette Walls
“Beloved,” by Toni Morrison
A note on our collection development: The Library opposes any attempts by individuals or groups of individuals to censor materials selected for its Community Libraries and Central Library collections. Further, the Library's decision to acquire or remove materials from its collections will not be determined by partisan or doctrinal points of view.
Earth Day is Monday, April 22, but you can celebrate our planet all month long with Queens Library, including at our weeklong film festival (see below).
Earth Week Green Film Festival
April 20—27 at Queens Library at Astoria, Broadway, Steinway, Sunnyside and Woodside
Catch free screenings of:
Dirt! The Movie - Monday, 4/22 at 3 p.m., Woodside Library
The future of the outer layer of earth and the place where nearly all the world's vegetation comes to life is in peril. Filmmakers Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow explain how we must protect it! Check out the movie.
Fuel - Saturday, 4/20 at 3 p.m., Steinway Library; Monday, 4/22 at 4:30 p.m., Astoria Library
Discover the shocking connections between the auto industry, the oil industry and the government, while learning about alternative energies. Check out the movie.
The Greenhorns - Monday, 4/22 at 4 p.m., Steinway Library; Thursday, 4/25 at 5 p.m., Astoria Library
What are the conditions facing this generation of agriculture workers? Get an inside look at America’s young farming community, its spirit, practices and needs.
Get Vegucated - Saturday, 4/20 at 3 p.m., Sunnyside Library; Saturday, April 27 at 3 p.m., Steinway Library
Can we create a greener world through nutrition? Three New Yorkers, used to consuming meat and dairy products, attempt to adopt a strict vegan diet. Check out the movie.
Queen of the Sun - Monday, April 22 at 6 p.m., Sunnyside Library
With bees involved in the growth of 40 percent of the world's food, restoring the global bee population—which has been on a mysterious decline—is of crucial importance and the subject of this documentary. Check out the movie.
A Man Named Pearl - Saturday, April 27 at 3 p.m., Sunnyside Library
Pearl's dazzling garden has served as an inspiration to his family, his community and the thousands of visitors who come to experience Pearl's world each year. Check out the movie.
Beijing Besieged by Waste (In Chinese) - Wednesday, April 24 at 4:30 p.m., Sunnyside Library
Filmmaker Wang Jiuliang travels to more than 500 landfills, documenting Beijing’s cycle of consumption and waste through.
Cartoneros (In Spanish) - Saturday, 4/20 at 3 p.m., Broadway Library
This film is both a record of an economic and social crisis and an invitation to audiences to rethink the value of trash.
As the world commemorated Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom Hashoah, on April 8, Queens Library at Astoria invited young library visitors to learn about the Holocaust. To remember and honor children who lost their lives as a result of this tragedy, we created butterflies, penning our favorite quotes about kindness on them.
On Friday, March 8, the Consul General of Japan in New York, Shigeyuki Hiroki, came to the Queens Library at Peninsula.
Our libraries in the Rockaways have had a rough time since Superstorm Sandy, which sent a huge storm surge through the plate glass windows of four locations, ruining books, furniture, electronics and wiring. Queens Library at Seaside, where I am the library manager, is still undergoing repairs.
At the Peninsula Library, we brought a mobile library to serve the community until temporary trailers could be delivered. We expect the main building will be open later this year, but in the meantime, we do our best in a much smaller space.
Japan has faced really bad natural disasters in the past, like earthquakes and tsunamis, so the Consul General wanted to help! In preparation of his visit, we here at Peninsula did a nice origami display. We also made a sign in Japanese that said, “Welcome to Queens Library” with a picture of a Japanese Bobtail, which is a special cat from Japan.
When the Consul General came, he was so happy to see the origami and the signs! The Consul General also brought his friends, including some executives from some major Japanese publishing companies, as well as the wife of U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks, Simone-Marie Meeks!
I was talking with Ms. Kumi Shimizu, General Manager of Kodansha USA Publishing, who translated my name Kacper Jarecki phonetically into Japanese. Evidently it means “Evil Devil.” I was so surprised!
The Consul General gave a really nice speech. Tom Galante, the Queens Library President & CEO, also gave a nice speech. Then the Japanese Consul gave the library such a nice gift: $10,000 and 200 books to help rebuild. That was such a generous present, and everyone from the library was so thankful!
Then it was time to go, so we said, “Sayonara,” which means “goodbye” in Japanese. In fact, the Consul General told me before he left to study Japanese, so I signed up for Japanese classes at the Japan Society. Taking those classes was so much fun! I even met another staff member from Queens Library there! And I met the head librarian of the Brooklyn Historical Society. I also met lots of business executives and an artist. When you try something new, you always get to meet cool people. I was so lucky!
Learning a new language is so exciting and rewarding! Queens Library has lots of cool books and multimedia items about learning a new language (I know because I have borrowed a lot of them). Queens Library also has a fun website where you can learn languages online for free — including Japanese!
If you want to help our libraries in the Rockaways recover, head over here to learn what you can do.
Spring is finally here! To celebrate the arrival of the first day of this season of growth, Queens Library at Sunnyside invited children to participate in an eco-crafts project to make beautiful butterflies. We upcycled coffee filters, folded accordion style, to serve as the bodies of the butterflies, while we reused clothespins to hold our butterflies' wings together. The final touch? Pipe cleaners made for the perfect antennas.
In observance of National Poultry Day, on March 19, Queens Libraries at Woodside and Broadway invited toddlers and their caregivers to make their own unique rooster crafts. Eco-arts fans: We used recycled paper to create the heads and beaks of our rooster creations. Our hand prints served as the comb--the ridges atop of a rooster's head--and scraps of paper were used to make the wattle--just under the rooster's beak.
To celebrate National Name Tag Day, on March 8, and Jewel Day, observed on March 13, Queens Library at Sunnyside invited children and their caregivers to make bejeweled name tags. Eco-arts fans: All the materials used for this craft came from old postcards and donated eco-friendly Avery label samples. For our jewels, we used stickers.
Repurposing old magazines and posters, kids at Queens Library at Sunnyside made their own pi charts for "Pi Day," celebrated every year on March 14 (3/14 or 3.14, like the first three digits in the number pi) all over the world. The symbol for pi is the Greek letter "Π." It is used in mathematics to represent a constant, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter: 3.14159 (and so forth, since pi is an irrational number and continues infinitely). There is no repetition or pattern to pi. It is unique and only a few digits are needed when calculating an equation. Trying to memorize the digits of pi are both challenging and fun. For this project we learned the first 10 digits of the number.
For more ways to celebrate the occasion, visit PiDay.org.
To celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday, on March 2, Queens Libraries at Woodside and Broadway invited children and their caregivers to make 3D aquariums, inspired by Seuss’s book One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, a children’s book that teaches readers simple rhymes. Dr. Seuss, whose real name is Theodor Seuss Geisel, was a beloved American author and poet known for his zany and outlandish characters. March 2 was adopted as the annual date for National Read Across America Day, an initiative created by the National Education Association to promote literacy. Eco-arts fans: All the paper used for this craft came from old posters and flyers.