IU hosting several events in honor of Earth Week

Considering recent Time magazine reports on global warming and Earth's health, some IU student groups are hoping to make this year's Earth Week especially relevant.\nA campus-wide cleanup, film festivals and the Earth and Music Festival highlight the full slate of free activities lined up for Earth Week in Bloomington. \nEarth Week kicks off Saturday with a campus-wide cleanup organized by the Civic Leadership Development. Participants will meet at 2 p.m. between the Kelley School of Business and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. They will be given garbage bags and gloves and will then be assigned an area of campus to beautify. At 4 p.m., they will meet for free pizza, said junior Daniel Vollen who helped organize the event. \n"We had about 100 volunteers last year," he said. "Hopefully we'll get 150 to 200 this year. Any more than that, we'll run out of pizza."\nThe week is capped off by the Earth and Music Festival, which will run from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, April 22 in Dunn Meadow. The free event allows attendees to participate in hands-on workshops and tree planting, and gives them a chance to build their own sculpture. \nA block away from the festival, at Eighth Street and Fess Avenue, is the groundbreaking for IU's first student-run organic garden. The garden will be open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and will include digging beds, plots, planting seeds and composting workshops.\nThe Kids' Earth Day Extravaganza is new to the festival. Children will have plenty to hold their attention with walls for painting, garden starters and trees of their own to plant, said senior Jesse Robinson of the Student Environmental Action Coalition. \nLocal musicians will play at the event every hour from 1 to 9 p.m. with funk/reggae band Spiritual Rez performing from 9 to 11 p.m.\nAcademic lectures are also scheduled for Monday through Wednesday. They will feature past Environmental Protection Agency administrators and published authors. Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan will attend a celebration of local green businesses to recognize environmentally friendly practices Wednesday.\nGraduate student Kassia Perpich, who helped plan Earth Week, encouraged everyone to come out and have fun while learning about the environment. \n"Earth Week is definitely a fun event," Perpich said. "But it's also an educational week"