Celebrate Earth Month – April 2026

March through Earth Day, April 22 – EcoAthletes Collegiate Cup – Open to all! Support the Duke Sustainable Athletics Group (DSAG) and sign up today. There’s no extra work involved—the app turns your daily steps or workouts into funding for ocean restoration. Support our students and our oceans.

April 1 – Duke School of Nursing Planetary Health Fair – No RSVP required; 1-3 p.m. in Duke School of Nursing Pearson Building Atrium. Hosted by the Duke School of Nursing.

April 2 – Resilient Community Built Around Farmers Flourishing –  Join local farmers, policymakers, and researchers as they share new insights from recent research and explore both the challenges and the opportunities of building a climate-ready food system.

April 3 – Community Work Day at Duke Campus Farm – Come join us in the fields to lose track of time, be outdoors, practice embodied work, and experience profound community with plants, soil, and humans! Hosted by Duke Campus Farm.

April 7 – Solar Radiation Modification to Help Address Climate Change? Prospects, Risks, and Governance – This lunch panel panel brings together leading scholars in social science and global governance to engage with the scientific, social, ethical, and geopolitical dimensions of one of the most consequential climate governance questions of the coming decades: solar radiation modification (SRM). Lunch provided with registration. Co-sponsored by the Duke Center on Risk, the Duke Space Initiative, and the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (BERI).

April 7 – Arbor Day Campus Tree Planting – Register as a volunteer to plant trees near Duke’s Central Campus Arts Annex. In observation of Arbor Day, students, faculty, staff and community members are invited to contribute to Duke’s ongoing recognition as a “Tree Campus” by the Arbor Day Foundation. This year’s event is supported by Duke Facilities Management, the Office of Climate and Sustainability and the Society of American Foresters Student Chapter.

April 8 – Garden Gateway opening

April 8 – Sustainable Business & Social Impact Conference Organized by students in the Fuqua School of Business.

April 9 – Duke Arts Floral Arranging Workshop: Dried flower arrangement workshop at Duke Campus Farm. Hosted by Duke Arts.

April 11 – Duke Campus Farm Spring Contra Dance – Grab your dancing shoes (or come barefoot) and join us at the Duke Campus Farm from 5-8 p.m. for a night of food, dancing, and live fiddle music! Whether you want to join in the dancing (no experience required) or stargaze and sip cider, we welcome you to the farm. Hosted by Duke Campus Farm.

April 16-19 – Full Frame Documentary Film Festival – annual four-day showcase of nonfiction film, a program of Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies. Celebrate Earth Month viewing films including Shifting Baselines (April 16), The Lake (April 17), Nuisance Bear (April 18), and Time and Water (April 19).

April 17 – Earth Fest – Join us in BC Plaza 11 am-3 p.m. for a celebration for our environment. Groups and offices from all across campus will be represented! Swing by for treats, activities, and music as part of our celebration. Hosted by Duke Student Affairs and the Office of Climate and Sustainability.

April 17 – Community Work Day at Duke Campus Farm – Come join us in the fields to lose track of time, be outdoors, practice embodied work, and experience profound community with plants, soil, and humans! Hosted by Duke Campus Farm.

April 17 – Field Notes – Open to all; Reclamation Pond, 5:30 p.m. In this workshop, participants will explore the beauty of the plants, bugs, and surroundings of Duke Gardens, and learn to document their observations in words and sketches. Whether you are a budding bird or bug watcher, seasoned nature lover, or have never given a thought to keeping a nature journal, The Art of Noticing workshop will help you hone skills to become a careful observer to the natural world. Workshop leaders will guide you through a hands-on experience in both plein air sketching and nature journaling, and hopefully set you off on a journey to a new way of noticing the world around you beyond Duke Gardens. Hosted by Duke Arts.

April 18 – Gallery Walk: Let’s Talk About Climate Change Student Projects, Student Wellness Center 148/149 from 1-3 p.m. How does climate affect our world? This year, 60 first-year students developed answers to this question in the first-ever Climate Change Constellation series. By hearing from scholars across the natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities and engaging closely with faculty, graduate students, and other undergraduates, our students have come up with creative, engaging, and productive answers to this fundamental question. Come see what these students have accomplished at our Climate Change Constellation Gallery Walk! Hosted by the Office of Climate & Sustainability.

April 20-22 – Duke at DC Climate Week

April 21 – Climate and Sustainability Research and Campus Impact Spring Showcase to highlight Green Devils, Bass Connections, and other student-led projects. Hosted by the Office of Climate & Sustainability and Nicholas Institute of Energy, Environment & Sustainability.

April 21 – Paper Making – open to all. Learn to make paper from recycled materials like junk mail. In this zero-waste workshop, we’ll use a blended pulp to create sheets of paper using the dip method with a mold and deckle, and discuss processes for making paper at home. We will also talk about and apply techniques and materials for customizing paper. You will leave with your own handmade paper! All levels are welcome and absolutely no experience is needed for this workshop. Hosted by Duke Arts Create.

April 22 – Earth Day! 

April 22 – Duke Ob/Gyn Second Annual Climate Action Day – Open to all. This year’s theme is Environmental Resilience in Human Communities. Ashley Ward, PhD, director of the Heat Policy Innovation Hub at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability, will deliver the keynote presentation. Duke Ob/Gyn has convened an annual Climate Action Day, organized by the steering committee of the Duke Climate Action Collaborative to Promote Reproductive Health (CACRH). 

April 23 – Climate Solutions: Conversation with Katharine Hayhoe – Open to all. Katharine Hayhoe is the chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy, a distinguished professor at Texas Tech University and the author of Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. Join the Duke Climate Commitment for a fireside chat with Dr. Hayhoe and Stanback Dean Lori Bennear of the Nicholas School of the Environment. Reception will follow talk. Hosted by the Office of Climate and Sustainability, in partnership with Nicholas School of the Environment and hosted at Duke Divinity School.

April 24 – Arbor Day 

April 24 – Duke Research Summit – featuring Lightning Talks on Sustainability and Resilient Communities. Hosted by Duke Research & Innovation.

April 24 – Community Work Day at Duke Campus Farm – Come join us in the fields to lose track of time, be outdoors, practice embodied work, and experience profound community with plants, soil, and humans! Hosted by Duke Campus Farm.

April 25 – Revaluing Care Workshop – Open to all. Focusing on soil as a living archive, this workshop reflects on questions of time and maintenance through hands-on soil work. Hosted at Duke Campus Farm.

April 28 – Resilient Duke: online climate themed reading group – Duke community: Join facilitators Faith Haines, Master’s student at UNC School of Information and Library Science, and Jodi Psoter, Librarian for Climate & Sustainability, to talk about how we can reframe climate narratives and bring climate optimism to conversations and solutions.

All month – Earth Month Cli-fi – Duke Libraries has a collection spotlight of climate fiction (cli-fi): recommended reads for Earth Month. See the physical display of books next to the Perkins Library Service Desk and also check out this blog post.

How are you planning to celebrate Earth Month? Tag @sustainableduke on Instagram in a photo by Earth Day. We want to hear from you and invite you to join us!

Have questions or suggestions? Contact climate@duke.edu.

For more information visit the Office of Climate and Sustainability and the Duke Climate Commitment.