For many of us, it’s been a year of “doom-scrolling” since the last Earth Day. Coronavirus forced most of us out of our usual gathering places and into our homes where we watched wildfires, murder hornets, and worse create the narrative of 2020. We celebrated “Earth Day at Home” with our fingers crossed for better days to come.

Now, with better days seemingly on the horizon, a new Earth Day approaches with a new theme: “Restore Our Earth”.

This theme resonates with us at Ecology. It’s a hopeful theme. But it’s not a whimsical hope born of wishful thinking. It’s a hope that comes from the chance to take action — something few of us could do last year. “Restore Our Earth” is a reminder that we’re not doomed, but there is work to do. It’s a call to action.

There are actions any of us can take. We can recycle our waste. We can reduce our emissions. We can research the world around us. While we’ve yet to resume our pre-COVID sense of normal, volunteer opportunities are beginning to return.

In that spirit, we’re combining our Earth Day campaign with Community Science Month. We’ll introduce you to some resources that remind us anyone can be a scientist. Next week you can review our website as we highlight ways we’re working to Restore Our Earth and we’ll introduce you to some resources to help you do the same.

Here’s a sneak preview of the kinds of opportunities and reminders we’ll be revealing.

Repel the invaders 

The Northwest Invasive Plant Council hosts a series of Early Detection Rapid Response community science training events, group hikes, and cutting-edge noxious weed workshops. Check out their web page for more information.

Research Puget Sound 

The makers of “Eyes Over Puget Sound” want your pictures for upcoming issues and possibly to help them pick future flight destinations. Join our iNaturalist projects to help us find jellyfish, algae blooms and beach wrack.

Reduce Your emissions 

Climate change threatens Washington’s water supplies, coastlines, farms, and forests. We can all do our part to prevent the impacts of climate change by reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from our cars, homes and offices.

Remember us? 

Earth Day isn’t just a chance for us to tell you what you can do. The week of Earth Day will also be an opportunity for us at Ecology to showcase some of the work we do to protect Washington’s land, air, and water.

Whether it’s our Toxic Cleanup Program’s work to restore contaminated sites or our Water Quality Program’s work to reclaim water, we’ll be highlighting the work we do every day to restore our Earth.

If you hadn’t already noticed we plan to recycle the “re” in "Restore Our Earth," so keep an eye out for our Earth Day logo. If you’re feeling generous, you can even give us a retweet.