Across the UChicago community, numerous virtual and in-person programs are scheduled in April around International Earth Day on April 22, 2023. Please see below for ways to engage in and learn more about how our community reflects on environmental impact and ways to leverage data, practices, and policies to find creative solutions to help combat climate change. Many events open before Earth Day and many are added as the month progresses – check back with us here for details and more information! Hosting an event that’s not on this list? Let us know!
reSTORE, UChicago’s first second-hand clothing shop just opened on April 2. Visit them for a sustainable shopping experience during Earth Month! They are open Thursday, Friday and Sunday, 1:00 to 5:00pm
| Date & Time | Event | Location | Unit | Description |
| open until June 11 | THE CHICAGO CLI-FI LIBRARY | Neubauer gallery | Neubauer Collegium | This exhibition is a modest attempt to make sense of the paralysis that sets in when artists try to fashion a response to the global climate crisis. Featuring recent works by Chicago-based artists Geissler & Sann, Jenny Kendler, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, and Dan Peterman. The gallery is open to the public Mon-Fri, 9am-4pm. |
| Wednesday April 12, 11:30 AM | Preparing Communities for the Water Challenges of our Climate Future | Saieh Hall for Economics, Room 146 | EPIC: Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago | Much of the United States has faced historic drought conditions and destructive flooding over the last several years, a trend only expected to intensify as scientists predict climate change will bring less rain to some areas and more extreme storms and sea level rise to others. This may lead to water struggles between states and communities, changes in the crops farmers can plant and the prices Americans pay for food, a migration from communities, and many more changes. What can the government do to help communities prepare for these risks?
Join EPIC as we host a conversation with Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) Michael Connor, who is leading all aspects of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Civil Works program. From building storm walls to conserving natural wetland barriers to solving water resource challenges, Connor is working to decrease climate risk for communities and make our ecosystems more resilient to climate change. |
| Wednesday 12 April, 12:00 PM | Campus Environmental Lunch and Learn | Mansueto Institute (Rm 101), 1155 E. 60th St. | EF Campus | Join us for a Campus Environmental Lunch and Learn about current and future research on environmental issues at the University of Chicago as part of Earth Month. We will hear from graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, and facilities staff who are working in collaboration as part of the Environmental Frontiers Campus (EF Campus) program to examine the University of Chicago’s campus energy use and environmental impact. Students have studied laboratory energy use (the largest single factor in UChicago’s energy footprint), developed dashboards to monitor energy use, and assessed issues with water usage and food waste. After talks and a question and answer session, you’ll have a chance to network with other students, faculty, and staff interested in environmental research, sustainability, and energy engineering.
12-12:50 PM 12:50-1:30 PM – Q&A and Networking |
| Friday 14 April, 12:00 PM | UCSC Feature Friday: Sustainability Partners (Unlock the Genius and others) | UChicago GRAD Grad Lounge (970 E 58th St 3rd Fl) | UCSC | Join us for our Feature Fridays conversation on Environmental Sustainability and Justice, featuring community leaders from our network of partners addressing how social justice issues such as economics, ecology, and equity are being incorporated into sustainability practices across the south side. This week we will be joined by Dr. Larry Muhammad from Unlock the Genius!
Agenda: About Feature Fridays: |
| Tuesday 18 April, 11:00 AM-2:00 PM | Spring Shred Fest | 1427 East 60th St. (Press Building parking lot) | ITS Information Security | In recognition of Earth Day, the University of Chicago ITS Information Security team is partnering with the Office of Sustainability, Facilities, and R4 Services to host a Spring Shred Fest on April 18. This event is free and open to all faculty, staff, students, and local community members. A taco truck will be onsite as well. |
| Wednesday 19 April, 12:30-1:30 PM | Mansueto Institute Lunch Colloquium: Patricia Romero Lankao: Unleashing the Transformative Potential for Energy Transitions in Cities – Lessons from Los Angeles | Mansueto Institute (Lounge), 1155 E. 60th St. | Mansueto Institute | Now proven to be essential agents of change globally, cities occupy a central role in societal responses to climate change. In its 5th and 6th reports, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has endorsed the need for a transformative research agenda on cities and climate. Although growing momentum exists to unleash the transformative potential of urban action, the extent to which current practice can address root causes and connections between unequal urban development and climate change is limited. Paty Romero-Lankao will draw lessons from social and policy approaches to LA100 Equity Strategies in this presentation. This high social impact project, which involves a community-informed analysis of strategies for Los Angeles, can shed light on how to ensure cities around the world transition to 100% clean energy while also centering on justice and the needs of underrepresented populations. |
| Thursday 20 April, 12:00 PM | Careers in Environmental Protection, Climate, and Energy | IOP Living Room | IOP Career Development and UChicago Career Advancement | Interested in a career in environmental protection, climate, and energy policy? Join the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and Career Advancement on Thursday, April 20th from 12-1 pm in the IOP Living Room to learn about careers in the field! We’ll be joined by special guest Olga Rostapshova, Executive Director of the Energy and Environment Lab at UChicago Urban Labs. She will talk about her career journey, lab, and opportunities for UChicago students to get involved in environmental policy. A couple of UChicago students with experience working in the environmental policy field will join us as well to answer student questions! Lunch from Saucy Porka will be provided. If you have any questions or dietary restrictions, please contact iopcd@uchicago.edu |
| Friday 21 April, 12:00 PM | Earth Day Panel: Environmental Justice in Chicago | Center for Identity + Inclusion (5710 S Woodlawn) | UCSC + OMSA | Environmental justice is a cause that impacts many communities of color across the United States. Join the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs and the University Community Service Center for lunch and a panel discussion from community organizations across Chicago that are working to create environmental change in their neighborhoods.
This event is open to all students across schools/divisions. Sign up by Wednesday, April 19th at 12 pm to reserve your spot. |
| Thursday 20 April , 4:30 PM – Friday 21 April, 6 PM | Environmental Emergencies, Emergent Environments Conference: Critical Perspectives from the Social Sciences and Humanities | Regenstein Library | CEGU | The climate crisis unfolds through a series of environmental emergencies at once abrupt and long-churning. These emergencies are deeply interwoven and yet, at the same time, engender unique and emergent environments of disaster, struggle, and social reinvention. How might we understand the roots of these transformations while attending to the particular environments where emergency erupts? How, in other words, might we think environmental emergencies and emergent environments together?
CEGU’s inaugural conference brings together scholars from across the social sciences and humanities—including agrarian studies, digital humanities, ecology, environmental history, geography, literature, planning, and urban sociology—to dialogue and debate about these issues, their historical genealogies, and future implications. The conference opens with the inaugural Calvin and Freda Redekop Lectures in Environment and Society and will feature panels on agrarian environments, spatial media, urbanization, and waste with leading scholars in conversation with CEGU faculty. To mark the occasion, the Seminary Co-op Bookstores are pleased to share a reading list of selected publications by the panelists and hosts of the conference. |
| Saturday 22 April, 10:00 AM | Earth Day of Service: Jackson Park | Museum of Science and Industry – Southeast Parking Lot | UCSC | Come out and join the UCSC for our annual Earth Day of Service on Saturday, April 22! This year, we’re working with the Jackson Park Advisory Council (JPAC) and other partners to support projects throughout Jackson Park’s many historic landscapes. Join us for clean ups in the woods and beaches, help out with the Osaka Garden Cherry Blossom Festival, and get to know more about the park’s biodiversity and history while serving alongside neighbors.
Projects begin at 10 a.m. and go through the afternoon, and volunteers are welcome to join when they wish. Volunteers can also walk over with UCSC staff from central points on campus (times and locations to be confirmed). This event is open to all members of the University community. |
| Saturday 22 April, 1 – 6 PM | Ancient Earth Day | Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, West Asia & North Africa (ISAC) – formerly OI | Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, West Asia & North Africa (ISAC) | 1:00 to 3:00 – Enjoy engaging gallery talks focused on ancient engineering and recycling in the ancient world. Plant herbs to take home while learning how ancient people used them. Then, complete a themed scavenger hunt and puzzle to earn a prize! 3:00 to 4:00 – Docent-led gallery tours about sustainability from the ancient world to now. 4:00 to 5:00 – Join us for a community conversation featuring Blacks in Green.Ancient Earth Day is a free event that is open to all ages and families! Please register in advance, and if you have any questions do not hesitate to reach out to oi-education@uchicago.edu. |
| Saturday 22 April, 2 – 4:00 PM | Quartet for the End of Time: Earth Day at the Neubauer Collegium | Neubauer Gallery | Neubauer Collegium | In honor of Earth Day, the Neubauer Collegium presents an afternoon of programming inspired by The Chicago Cli-Fi Library, on view in our gallery through June 11. A screening of Alain Renais’s documentary film Le chant du Styrène (1958; 13 min.) will offer a poetic meditation on the plastic industry resonant with Dan Peterman’s sculptural installations Archive for 57 People and Archive (One Ton). A performance of How Does the World End (for Others)? will feature a dramatic reading of a score the artists Geissler & Sann composed for the exhibition, which includes fragments from classic “climate fiction” (“cli-fi”) texts. The reading will be followed by a musical performance in which Chicago-based percussionist Michael Zerang will animate Jenny Kendler’s sculpture Whale Bells, made in collaboration with Andrew Bearnot. |
| Tuesday 25 April, 10:00 AM – 6:30 PM | Science and Religion Conference: From Conflict to Celebration | Swift Third Floor Lecture Hall | Divinity School | Please join us for a conference featuring speakers Peter Harrison, Marilynne Robinson, Sarah Fredericks, Adrian Johns, and Andrew Davison, and chaired by Alireza Doostdar, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and the Anthropology of Religion. “Science and Religion: From Conflict to Celebration” is built around the prolific work of Harrison, who will serve as the Sara H. Schaffner Visiting Professor in the Divinity School in spring 2023. Harrison’s work focuses on questions of science and religion, including his best known title The Territories of Science and Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015). Avoiding too much territorialism, the conference aims to discuss the different configurations in which science and religion find themselves: are they enemies, competitors, friends, or foes? Most centrally, it will engage the notions of conflict and celebration to imagine new ways of mapping out their territories or rather, to quote a more recent title by Harrison, to map out the new terrain called “After Science and Religion.” A moderated discussion between Harrison and novelist Marilynne Robinson with room for audience participation will conclude this exciting one-day conference. |
| Friday 28 April, 12:00 PM | UCSC Feature Friday: Sustainability Partners (Jackson Park Advisory Committee and others) | UChicago GRAD Grad Lounge (970 E 58th St 3rd Fl) | UCSC | Join us for our Feature Fridays conversation on Environmental Sustainability and Justice, featuring community leaders from our network of partners addressing how social justice issues such as economics, ecology, and equity are being incorporated into sustainability practices across the south side. This week we will be joined by the Jackson Park Advisory Committee and others to be announced!
Agenda: 12 PM: Lunch The University Community Service Center (UCSC) is pleased to present Feature Fridays, a series of conversations between community partners and students about Chicago, civic engagement, and social change. Each quarter, UCSC will select a distinct social challenge and invite those leading efforts to address that challenge in our communities through various sectors to join UChicago student leaders in panel-style discussions. |
| Wednesday 3 May, 12 – 1:30 PM | Deans forum with Sarah Fredericks | Swift Hall Common Room | Divinity School | In Environmental Guilt and Shame: Signals of Individual and Collective Responsibility and the Need for Ritual Responses, (OUP) Sarah E. Fredericks documents the existence of environmental guilt and shame in the contemporary United States through the analysis of many popular texts, offering the most comprehensive documentation of these phenomena to date. She suggests that existing rituals need significant enhancement to fully address these moral emotions and the environmental degradation that catalyzes them. Fredericks is Associate Professor of Environmental Ethics; Associate Professor of Qur’anic Studies. Yousef Casewit will be responding. |
| Friday May 5 | Fossil Capitalism in the Global South: capstone conference | Neubauer Collegium | Neubauer Collegium | This research project is offering fresh analysis of “fossil capitalism” by shifting the frame away from large industrial economies and toward the economic trajectories and energy systems of postcolonial societies in the Global South. An interdisciplinary group of scholars from the University and other institutions – including historians and anthropologists as well as literary critics and philosophers – are collaborating on a series of reading groups and public lectures to study how developing nations balance economic growth and ecological harm, and to identify paths that may lead to a post-fossil future. |
Want more Earth Week content?
Check out these events taking place nationally and globally:
April 19-23 Earth Week Film Fest One Earth Film Festival Virtual – view screenings and get tickets here
Countdown to Earth day U.S. Environmental Protection Agency https://www.epa.gov/earthday