The sun rises over Cedar Swamp in Westborough, as viewed from Whitney Hill. The Boston skyline is visible in the distance.
REGION – Earth Day in 2021 will look different due to COVID-19. But local organizations are still eyeing Thursday, April 22 and the weekend directly after it as a rally point for ongoing conservation and beautification efforts.
Northborough/Southborough hosts Earth Day Poster Contest – Due Friday, April 30
Youth in Northborough and Southborough can celebrate Earth Day through a cross-town arts project this month.
Contestants must create a poster on 8.5 by 11 inch paper focusing on either Earth Day or the theme “Restore our Earth.” Judges will split submissions between Northborough and Southborough public schools to then choose one winning poster from each school.
Home-schooled children are encouraged to apply and will be grouped by age.
Learn more at: https://www.southboroughtown.com/conservation-commission/news/2021-earth-day-poster-contest.
Shrewsbury hosts Annual Town Clean Up – April 24
The group Keep Shrewsbury Beautiful will host its Annual Town Clean-up Saturday, April 24.
Interested participants can sign up to clean a chosen spot in town. They can then drop off what they collect at a designated pickup location.
Supplies will be available at Shrewsbury Town Hall from 8 – 9:30 a.m.
Learn more at: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0e45a8a72da2ff2-shrewsbury.
Southborough Rotary Club hosts BioBlitz initiative – April 24 – 25
Budding naturalists can participate in the Southborough Rotary Club’s 2021 BioBlitz event.
Running Saturday, April 24 through Sunday, April 25, BioBlitz calls on local residents to download the “iNaturalist app” and start exploring their surroundings.
A free phone application, iNaturalist allows users to try to identify plants and animals they see. Given a specimen, the app will offer a number of likely candidates, then asking the user to identify one.
A “real” naturalist will then vet and verify whether the choice was correct.
“There is more diversity out there than you can imagine and getting to know some of it will improve anyone’s life,” Rotary Club Member Carl Guyer wrote in a message to the Community Advocate explaining the effort.
From 10 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., Rotarians will be present at the Breakneck Hill Conservation Land and Chestnut Farm trailheads to provide “socially distanced” assistance to those who decide to explore these lands.
