Earth Day History
Earth Day: A History of GLOBE Celebrations
See below how GLOBE members celebrated Earth Day in 2023, as well as highlights from nearly three decades of GLOBE Earth Day anniversaries.
2023: Connecting Our Community
GLOBE premiered its "Agents of Change" documentary series at last year’s event. The series explores the impact GLOBE students are having around the world, with each video focusing on how different GLOBE regions are implementing GLOBE's mission.
Watch GLOBE's livestreamed 2023 Earth Day broadcast below.
Prior Earth Day Highlights
2022
Air Temperature Data Challenge: GLOBE students around the world joined in an Air Temperature Data Challenge, collecting a massive amount of data on a single day in March. They then participated in a series of activities leading up to Earth Day, focusing on visualizing and connecting the worldwide air temperature data they had collected and submitted.
2021
Vloggers Debut: The first GLOBE student vlog team was introduced through a video montage, as these 14 vloggers initiated what has quickly become one of GLOBE’s most popular student activities.
2020
GLOBE Indoors: For the first Earth Day during the COVID-19 pandemic, GLOBE provided students and teachers with various indoor learning activities and webinars to help them stay involved with GLOBE while sheltering at home.
2019
Observing Trees: As part of a campaign started in tandem with NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite launch, GLOBE encouraged students to have a day of tree observation and data collection. The GLOBE school with the most collected data received a special badge and an opportunity to speak with a NASA scientist, researcher or engineer.
2018
Students Celebrate an Irish Learning Expedition: This year's event included a special video with messages from GLOBE students who had represented their regions as keynote speakers at the 2018 GLOBE Learning Expedition in Killarney, Ireland.
2017
How GLOBE Is Implemented: In addition to a day of cloud observations, teachers from each region submitted short videos showing how GLOBE is implemented in their classrooms.
2016
Live Broadcast and eTrainings Launch: This year’s event included a data entry challenge and the first live broadcast drawing of IVSS stipend recipients. GLOBE also announced the launch of the eTraining section of GLOBE.gov to help support workshop training.
2015
Two Decades of GLOBE: To celebrate its 20th anniversary, The GLOBE Program launched a new version of GLOBE.gov and announced a new data entry app, along with a revised Teachers Guide and a data challenge.
2013
How GLOBE Inspires: GLOBE students from around the world shared videos about how participating in GLOBE has enabled or inspired them to improve the environment of their home, school and local community. The following videos received first prize for each region:
- Top Overall: Kingsburg High School, Kingsburg, California, United States of America
- Africa: Ilboru High School, Arushu, Tanzania
- Asia and Pacific: Donchanwittayakom School, Donchan District, Thailand
- Europe and Eurasia: IES Vega de San Mateo, Islas Canarias, España
- Latin America and Caribbean: Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina
- Near East and North Africa: The 25th Secondary Girls School at Al-Madinah Al-Monawarah, Al-Madinah Al-Monawarah, Saudi Arabia
- North America: Madison Plains High School, London, Ohio, United States
2012
Climate Science Video Competition: GLOBE students created videos of their class exploring and investigating their local climate through data collection with GLOBE protocols and climate-focused learning activities. The following videos received first prize for each region:
- Africa: Lucy Academy, Ethiopia, Africa
- Asia and Pacific: Princess Chulabhorn's College, Trang, Thailand
- Europe and Eurasia: Aradippou High School, Aradippou, Cyprus
- Latin America and Caribbean: National Agrarian University La Molina, La Molina, Peru
- Near East and North Africa: Al Yamama School, Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia
- North America: Trinity Lutheran School, Newport News, Virginia, USA
2011
Picnics, Contests and Water History: The Picnic for the Planet 2011, organized within the Nature Conservancy Communities, included picnics held in over 500 cities worldwide. This active year also included a water pollution investigation in Africa, a Walk for Mother Earth and various competitions in India, a student celebration at Italian farm, and educational events in Bahrain and the Dominican Republic.
2010
A Day of Service: For the 40th Earth Day celebration, GLOBE sponsored a Global Day of Service Activities, which included stream clean-ups, litter patrols, watershed restorations, public education and tree plantings.
2007
Special Anniversary in Poland: The U.S. Ambassador to Poland participated in events to celebrate Earth Day and honor the 10th anniversary of GLOBE in Poland. There was also a special video conference in Israel and an art competition in Bangladesh.
2004
Student Field Campaigns: GLOBE launched several student field campaigns, including a Contrail Count-a-Thon and data collections for land cover and soil moisture.
2003
Soil Moisture Campaign: During this year's Earth Day Week, GLOBE encouraged students to collect near-surface soil moisture over as large an area as possible.
2000
Balloons, Blooms and Communications: In Zegreb, Croatia, students launched a huge GLOBE hot air balloon and a list of their data reports that was 20 meters long. Students and Benin held a clean-up day along with a visit to a botanical garden. In the United Kingdom, students gathered at the recently completed Millennium Dome, where they collected atmosphere data and emailed with students around the world.
1997-1999
Special Messages for a Young Program: For each of these three GLOBE Earth Day celebrations, members received a message from U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who first proposed the program. These early celebrations also included an Earth Day poster contest, a film festival and topical chats led by NASA scientists.