Forty years ago, U-M students prepared the way for the first Earth Day teach-in. Here's how a casual talk over beer on Washington Street spurred the modern environmental movement.
Read the whole story by Jim Tobin on the Michigan Today website
Even before the first Earth Day, the university was producing environmental leaders. Many have played vital parts in the biggest environmental transformations of the past 40 years. We asked three of them to share their stories.
Read the whole story on the Michigan Today website
The first national Earth Day was in April 1970. But a group of University of Michigan students set the tone with their “Teach-in” a month earlier, writes the Ann Arbor Chronicle’s Alan Glenn. “The students initially desired to keep the teach-in apolitical, sober, and focused on science. In the highly charged atmosphere of the time, such a goal would prove impossible. [But the] eventual politicization of the teach-in would prove to be a significant factor in making it the watershed event it would ultimately become.”
Read the whole article at the Ann Arbor Chronicle website
A 1970 film documentary about the University of Michigan Environmental Teach-In, asking the question: do teach-ins work? The U-M Teach-In was a model for many activities associated with the original "Earth Day".
The program was produced as part of a UM-TV series title "Understanding Our World".
UM-TV produced television programs were recorded on film and videotape and shipped to commercial television stations around the country.
Watch the video from the Bentley Historical Library
While the idea of a national teach-in day on the environment was [Earth Day founder] Gaylord Nelson’s, he was not the first to conceive of an environmental teach-in. Students at the U-M (where in 1965 the teach-in format had been pioneered) began in September 1969 sketching out just such an event. The parallel efforts would eventually reinforce each other. The Michigan coordinators paid close attention and drew inspiration from the activities being planned for Earth Day. Nelson saw them as a valuable asset in discussions about the architecture of his national teach-in.
Read the whole article at the Nelson Earth Day website
Morton S. Hilbert, a co-founder of Earth Day and U-M professor emeritus of public health, died on Dec. 24 at his home in Bellevue, WA. In 1968, Hilbert and the U.S. Public Health Service organized an environmental conference on the effects of environmental degradation on human health. This was the beginning of Earth Day. For the next two years, Hilbert and students worked to plan the first Earth Day. In the spring of 1970—along with a federal proclamation from U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson—the first Earth Day was held.