Celebrate Earth Day with the April EcoChallenge

Campus Sustainability Office April 1, 2020
Motivational poster from the Earth Day foundation with text "we're taking action"

Join the Cornell University Team competing in the "Earth Day EcoChallenge" throughout the month of April.  Commit to individual actions that lead to collective impact. | Photos:  Earth Day Foundation

Are you looking for a way to make a difference during Sustainability Month and to celebrate Earth Day?

On the first Earth Day in 1970, 20 million people in the United States took a stand to demand a better way forward for our planet. Fifty years later, Cornell University is joining thousands of organizations across the nation in celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Earth Day, with a month-long competition. 

The Earth Day Ecochallenge is a 30-day environmental and social engagement program that allows each of us to harness small actions for collective, global impact. From April 1 - April 30, select actions to take that align with your individual values and make a 30-day commitment to complete those actions, all the while practicing and reinforcing good habits. 

You can join the Cornell team, and together, we compete against other colleges & universities in New York State and beyond.

For every completed action, you earn points and create impact. Your points contribute to your team's total points. Choose actions that are practiced one-time or daily.  All of the actions have been tailored to be appropriate to the current self-isolation and remote working practices in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Everyone can participate!  Here's how to get started:


Checklist of actions someone might take around people for the ecochallenge
Be sure to share your participation on social media!

How to Participate in the EcoChallenge 

Competition occurs through April 30th, 2020.

Step 1: Join the Cornell Team

  1. Create your own login at earthDay.ecochallenge.org

  2. Search for Big Red Goes Green or Cornell 

  3. Use the password  ONECORNELL 

Step 2: Choose Your Actions

Explore actions in each theme like People, Food, Climate and more. You'll be committing to taking that action through the end of April.  Choose 1 action, 2, or 15 - as many as you can commit to!

  1. Choose 1-2 actions to commit to for the whole month.

  2. Select actions you already take to gain extra credit!

Step 3: Log Your Activity

Mark actions as completed every day! Every action you take adds points to Cornell’s point total, so be sure to login to your Ecochallenge dashboard daily to click the button on each action you completed. Recruit teammates and update your profile to earn more points for our team.

Set an easy reminder to log your activity every day. For example:

  1. Make the Earth Day EcoChallenge page as your browser homepage. 
    Here's a helpful how-to.

  2. Set a recurring Outlook Calendar invitation for 8:30am each day to remind you to login

  3. Add the EcoChallenge to your weekly team meetings or check-ins for group accountability

Step 4: Follow for Updates

Follow Sustainable Cornell on Instagram, Facebook, or to see how
our team is performing and stay motivated to complete your actions.

As you complete actions, you will see your own impact add up on your dashboard and profile. You can also view impacts for the entire event by clicking the “Impact” link on the top of any page, and filter to see the impacts from the Big Red Goes Green team. The feed is a great place to find inspiration and interact with your fellow Cornellians during the event. You can share thoughts and photos, reply to posts, and virtually hi-five your teammates. Plus, you’ll earn +5 points for each post.


Need help joining? Watch this video.

Need help getting started? Watch this video:

 

About Earth Day Ecochallenge

On the first Earth Day in 1970, 20 million people in the United States took a stand to demand a better way forward for our planet. Here we are fifty years later, and Earth Day is now recognized as the planet’s most significant annual civic engagement event. Our recognition of Earth Day now takes up the entire month of April in many places around the world. Earth Day Ecochallenge helps you put your Earth Day intentions into action by providing you with the information, motivation, tools, and community to make a difference for our planet Earth.