Making Change
Combining education, effort, and hope, Earth Day celebration at COA invites the entire community
BAR HARBOR—Linneah Goh isn’t just a student at the College of the Atlantic. She’s a climate activist, a student, and someone who has organized the college’s Earth Day event for three years in a row, an organizer who puts thoughts and beliefs into action.
This year, the College of the Atlantic will host a free, community-wide, community-invited Earth Day celebration on Saturday, April 20 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
It’s a day that organizers and the college hope will help bring people from across Mount Desert Island to connect, to explore, and to celebrate the earth and each other.
“COA’s Earth Day event is a space for the MDI community to come together and celebrate the earth through hands-on activities for all ages and to learn more about regional environmental initiatives,” said Goh ’25. “There will be opportunities to learn about local organizations, get free plants, listen to live music, learn how to fix your bike, buy second-hand books, and participate in many other activities.”
Goh and Léo Charbonneau ’27 have also been “appointed as Zero Waste Fellows with the Post Landfill Action Network’s Atlas Zero Waste Project to develop a Zero Waste Strategic Vision for COA,” according to an April 11 release from the college.
The duo will interact with Post Landfill Action Network (PLAN) staff “to take part in training, discussions, workshops, and activities as they hold visioning sessions with campus stakeholders in preparation for drafting the strategic plan,” the release says.
“I believe that we have a responsibility, as an institution and individuals, to minimize the negative impact we can have on our community, and this goes for the way we manage our waste,” Charbonneau said. “Zero waste is a relatively easy climate action strategy that communities can implement to drastically reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. I am hopeful that this work will bring lasting sustainable changes to the college, and to the wider community.”
That responsibility is part education, part effort, and part hope. Those are all parts of what the Earth Day celebration is about as well.
Opening remarks begin the day at 11 a.m. People can tour the campus and see its clean energy improvements, check out a life-size and inflatable humpback whale. For those that prefer live animals, they can hang out with lambs from COA’s Peggy Rockefeller Farm.
A Climate to Thrive, Maine Coast Heritage Trust, Acadia National Park, and the Bar Harbor Conservation Commission will have activities and information tables. Local musicians and Funky Trunk Puppets will perform. And Bar Harbor’s Climate Emergency Task Force will be there, hoping for feedback for its Climate Action Plan for Bar Harbor.
WHEN DID EARTH DAY START?
According to EarthDay.org, “Senator Gaylord Nelson, the junior senator from Wisconsin, had long been concerned about the deteriorating environment in the United States. Then in January 1969, he and many others witnessed the ravages of a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Inspired by the student anti-war movement, Senator Nelson wanted to infuse the energy of student anti-war protests with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution. Senator Nelson announced the idea for a teach-in on college campuses to the national media, and persuaded Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Republican Congressman, to serve as his co-chair.”
Nelson met up with activist Denis Hayes. They wanted to include the youth, college age students, and more.
“They choose April 22, a weekday falling between Spring Break and Final Exams, to maximize the greatest student participation,” EarthDay writes. “Recognizing its potential to inspire all Americans, Hayes built a national staff of 85 to promote events across the land and the effort soon broadened to include a wide range of organizations, faith groups, and others. They changed the name to Earth Day, which immediately sparked national media attention, and caught on across the country. Earth Day inspired 20 million Americans — at the time, 10% of the total population of the United States — to take to the streets, parks and auditoriums to demonstrate against the impacts of 150 years of industrial development which had left a growing legacy of serious human health impacts.”
OUR INTERVIEW WITH LINNEA GOH
Linnea Goh was kind enough to grant a quick interview about the event.
You’re coordinating the day. Are you excited? Getting a lot of help? Is it invigorating? Overwhelming? A combination?
I am excited. I love seeing events I organize come together after all the work that goes into preparing for them. This is my third year coordinating COA's Earth Day event. It definitely gets a lot less overwhelming each year, especially since I started planning it in January. This year I'm working with a student, Pema Lhundrup, so that she can learn the process. We will also have lots of help running the event on the day of from the Campus Committee for Sustainability, Buildings and Grounds Department, Audiovisual Team, and Media Team.
What is your best possible outcome/hope?
I hope that lots of families come to the event and that people of all ages can take this time to celebrate the Earth together. Many environmental-focused organizations from around MDI will be hosting tables and facilitating activities at the event. I hope that participating in this event inspires community members to join future events hosted by these organizations or inspires youth to one day work for similar organizations.
COA has invited the whole community for the event. Can you tell me a little about why? Was it a hard decision or an easy one?
This decision was super easy. We believe Earth Day is an excellent opportunity for the whole MDI community to come together in a day of celebration. I started organizing Earth Day right after COVID, and it seemed like a perfect way for the community to reconnect.
I’m assuming (and so many apologies if I’m wrong) that you really are passionate about the environment. Have you always been this way? Is there something that you focus on (plastics, food waste, etc.)? And how does Earth Day fold into that?
I have always been passionate about the environment, but my specific interests have shifted over time. I grew up on the West Coast of Canada, surrounded by the mountains and the ocean, and I spent a lot of time outside with my family. I think this plays into the way I have planned Earth Day. It is of course, weather dependent, but we try to plan the event outside so that people can connect with their family and friends while enjoying the outdoors.
I spent many years focused on plastic pollution reduction projects. However, my more current work focuses on overall waste management systems and climate action planning. I am a member of Bar Harbor's Climate Emergency Task Force (CETF). CETF will be at Earth Day and hosting a table to gather feedback on our updated Climate Action Plan. Recently, I have also been working on a Zero Waste Strategic Vision for COA. I am now beginning the process of turning this into a Zero Waste Action Plan. I hope that kids will learn about the work organizations on MDI are doing and be inspired to one day pursue similar projects to me.
I think one of the main ways my interests play into Earth Day planning is my belief in community based solutions. I think any real change in this community needs to start with us all coming together.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
This year’s theme is Planet vs. Plastics
For more information, visit coa.edu/calendar
Bar Harbor’s Climate Task Force
Click here to learn more about PLAN and the ATLAS Zero Waste Project.
All the amazing photos in this story (unless otherwise noted) are from last year’s event and provided by the College of the Atlantic’s Will Draxler ‘26.
If you’d like to donate to help support us, you can, but no pressure! Just click here. And this post (like all of our posts) is free with no paywalls, so feel free to share it.