Each April, Oxy’s campus comes to life with a celebration of our planet.
At Oxy, “Earth Day” just isn’t enough to capture our commitment to sustaining our planet! Students, staff, and faculty come together to plan a whole month’s worth of events, including local guest speakers, workshops, film screenings, an Earth Day Quad Fair, and so much more!
Click here for a view of all events on the calendar! Then, !
Our second in the Dialogues Across Difference series where we discuss "Finding My Space on Campus." Our facilitators will share their safest spaces on campus and discuss the ways that nature can help us heal from trauma, connect us with those we have lost, and how we can interact with nature as a friend or community member. *Please RSVP for the event .
Do you find SusFund sus? Well maybe that's a sign that you need to come on down, have a basil & pesto ciabatta, and learn a bit about what we do! In the process, maybe we could learn a little about you too. :)
Join the Religious Studies Department and the Office of Sustainability for a talk from Professor Amanda J. Baugh regarding her new book, .
Celebrate Earth Month with FEAST and SLICE! Join us for an evening of crafting native California poppies with tissue paper (we will also have some plant-themed goodies to give away to those who join us!)
Make a print of native plants using the sun!
Explore and celebrate wildlife on campus by taking a guided bird walk through Oxy grounds with the Moore Lab of Zoology! *Please RSVP to event .
Take public transit to the Hollywood Farmers Market and get $15 to spend on fresh, local finds! With Oxy's Excess Food Recovery Team, we will learn about food waste and recovery in LA! Please RSVP for event .
Staff & Faculty -- you are invited to make a bouquet and enjoy snacks with the Fun Committee and the Office of Sustainability in celebration of Spring!
We will be potting plants and painting the pots, as well as engaging in conversations about the restorative nature of plants.
The Office of the President and the Office of Sustainability will be hosting the first open meeting on the development of the Oxy Climate Action and Sustainability Plan (CASP). We will share updates and want to hear your thoughts! Development of the plan was catalyzed by the Second Nature Climate Commitment signed by President Elam in January 2024, with a target of having a plan approved in Spring 2027. Please attend this forum to share your thoughts on sustainability at Oxy and help us develop a collective vision for this plan. Additional opportunities for input will follow, but please help us kick this off!
Please by Friday, April 4th.
Come play with and learn how to make your own wild ink from wild oak gall.
Take a behind-the-scenes tour of the Moore Lab of Zoology and learn how natural history collections aid in our understanding of bird diversity, environmental science, and conservation. *Please RSVP for event .
EcoKinship, FEAST's inaugural sculpture installation, encourages reflection on our relationship to land, nature, and non-human beings. Visit EcoKinship on April 11th from 4-6 pm to view a collection of sculptures made by Oxy's artists, enjoy light refreshments, and engage in a dialogue about environmental stewardship, interconnectedness, and reciprocity! (EcoKinship will be open from April 11th-April 28th). !
Join us for the "Eco-Wellness Walk: Navigating Nature and Eco-Anxiety" this Earth Month! Enjoy a refreshing walk, a thought-provoking presentation on eco-anxiety, and meaningful discussions as we explore sustainability and well-being in the great outdoors. Please RSVP for event .
Enjoy a home cooked meal made with produce from local farms including Occidental's Food Energy and Sustainability Team (FEAST) garden.
Enjoy your Saturday Dinner at Cannon Plaza (normally at Berkus) and celebrate Earth Month with a fun-filled trivia night —test your eco-knowledge and enjoy a sustainable feast!
Address your repair pile and come give your clothes a new life. Learn different and/or new techniques for mending and repairing textiles.
We will be using air dry clay and tumbling of recycled glass bottles on campus to make trinket dishes or sculptures.
Learn how to sow seeds and grow your own food with FEAST!
Join the MAC Department, Obama Scholars Program, Office of Sustainability, FEAST, and the Womxn of Cinema and Television Club (WCTV) for a screening of "Making a Mini-Forest" with film creator Angelina Lee '22. Light refreshments served beforehand!
In partnership with Party Goats LA, SusFund will be hosting a fun goat event in the FEAST Garden to destress with goats and sheep amidst finals season. We will be able to learn about the vital role goats play in clearing invasive plants and improving soil nutrients!
Take a deep dive into the Compost World and discover the world that exists in our soils as we look through a microscope at microbial organisms from samples of the FEAST Cafeteria to Compost project. LA Compost’s Community Soil Health team, Maggie Smart Mcacbe ‘20 and Lynn Fang, MS, will guide attendees through the important role of microbes in our soil systems, and how we can best support them. Come ready to ask all your microbially curious questions and bring your own soil samples!
How can the teachings of fungi help us heal our broken relationship with the land? Fungi have a historically impressive record when it comes to relationships and the land. For millions of years they have cultivated relationships with algae through evolution to form plants and life on land as we know it. To this day, fungi sustain all of the life we depend on for food, materials, and medicines. Fungi can offer us insight on how life works from the view of ecology -the scientific study of the interconnected relationships of living things. Perhaps from this fresh perspective, we can learn how to work with fungi, and their relationships, to live responsibly on a damaged planet.
This workshop, led by local artist Jess Grudiel, is meant to shed light on how vulnerable our beloved bat relatives are, mainly due to misunderstanding, villainization, and ecological zenophobia. The workshop consists of a brief description of what zines are and a look at the particular method I chose for this zine titled "Batz Crazy". Participants will get a chance to interact with it and learn how to cut and fold this 8x11 page into a zine while learning important facts about our local bats!
Hosted annually by SusFund, come to the 2025 Earth Month Quad Fair to celebrate Earth Day! This culmination brings together many of our campus sustainability and Earth-related groups to educate and celebrate together! This year’s lineup includes:
+ MORE!
QUEER ECOLOGY is the study of everything in nature that subverts western cultural expectations about how the world *should* work. The natural world does not subscribe to any particular human culture, it exists as a beautifully diverse tapestry of ways to survive and thrive--individualistic or communal; patriarchal or matriarchal; heterosexual, homosexual, or in the case of most flowers, bisexual. We will observe, share, and learn about nature in ways that reflect our own diversity, and connect to it on a whole new beautiful level.
This event, co-sponsored by the Office of Sustainability and the ASOC Sustainability Fund, is open to the whole campus (students, staff, and faculty) with a goal of connecting with each other and our campus landscapes using the lens of Queer Ecology, led by Jason Wise (@JasonJourneyman), an LA-based environmental educator and LGBTQ+ activist! This is a physical activity; it will be downhill, but please be advised that we'll be walking around campus!
MUST RSVP for the event here:
Hop on public transit and embark on an art-filled adventure to the Norton Simon Museum! Please RSVP for this event .
Join us for the Project SAFE 5K Run and Walk for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit Folks! Come for the teach-in and stay for our run/ walk followed by refreshments!
QUEER ECOLOGY is the study of everything in nature that subverts western cultural expectations about how the world *should* work. The natural world does not subscribe to any particular human culture, it exists as a beautifully diverse tapestry of ways to survive and thrive--individualistic or communal; patriarchal or matriarchal; heterosexual, homosexual, or in the case of most flowers, bisexual. We will observe, share, and learn about nature in ways that reflect our own diversity, and connect to it on a whole new beautiful level.
This event, co-sponsored by the Office of Sustainability and the ASOC Sustainability Fund, is open to the whole campus (students, staff, and faculty) with a goal of connecting with each other and our campus landscapes using the lens of Queer Ecology, led by Jason Wise (@JasonJourneyman), an LA-based environmental educator and LGBTQ+ activist! This is a physical activity; it will be downhill, but please be advised that we'll be walking around campus!
MUST RSVP for the event here:
Join us for a Day For Oxy Coffee Break on the Rose Hills Patio, open to all staff and faculty from 9:30–10:30 a.m. Kick off the day with a cup of coffee and connect with colleagues as we celebrate the start of Oxy's biggest giving day!
Denim Day is a nationally recognized day of supporting survivors of sexual assault and their allies. This year, Project SAFE continues to honor survivors by collaborating with Day for Oxy in hosting our Denim Day Quad Fair and Day for Oxy Wellness Café! Stop by for resources, self-care goodies, and even some prizes!
Touch grass! Meet chickens! Eat some mint!... Join the Food Energy and Sustainability Team (FEAST) on a tour of our main food-growing garden space!
Come get your hands on some seeds and learn about the intersection of native ecology and our food system with the awesome community initiative Altadena Seed Library!
Close out Earth Month 2025 by bringing your e-waste to the Quad to recycle it properly!
View a calendar of all events from Earth Month 2024!
Held annually on the last Thursday of April, the ASOC Sustainability Fund hosts a pop-up fair on the main campus Quad with temporary tattoos, sustainability tabling, and free local and vegetarian foods. In 2024, highlights included free Beewali's Vegan AF wraps, a native plant sale, Oxy olive oil tasting, paracord bracelet making, and a thrift store fundraiser for a local environmental organization.
The first Earth Month Film Fest featured three documentaries with environmental themes, including "Roots so Deep," "HANDS-ON: Women: Climate: Change," and a finale debut of Oxy alum 's "The Big Raise," a 40-minute documentary about permaculture in France.
Each year, the UEP 247: Urban Ag and Native Landscaping Practicum welcomes a series of local guest speakers to campus and opens the class to the community. In 2024, they welcomed Jose Gamma, an urban forestry expert; Maggie Smart-McCabe '20 and Lynn Fang from LA Compost; Aaron Tupoc of ";" and , Oxy's retired Environmental Health and Safety Manager and honeybee expert.
The Moore Lab of Zoology hosted a series of events including a natural history collection open house, a native bird walk, and a migration bird count with the FEAST Garden.
The Marketplace, Oxy's largest dining hall, hosted a series of vegetarian lunches each Friday in April. Menus included enchiladas, mac and cheese, empanadas, and falafel.
In an effort to teach Oxy students how to use public transit, and take advantage of their free U-Pass TAP cards, the Sustainable Oxy Citizens Club took students to LA State Historic Park for a picnic and the Hollywood Farmers Market on Metro buses. Student participants were given $15 vouchers to spend at the farmers market, courtesy of the ASOC Sustainability Fund.
This annual event features a home-cooked brunch with produce from the FEAST Bruce Steele Garden and local farmers markets and live music by student performers!
On April 22nd, 2024, Project SAFE hosted the first-ever annual 5k to honor and bring awareness to Earth Day and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and 2Spirit People! The event featured a teach-in by the So'oh-Shinálí Sister Project to share the historical context of the ongoing trend of sexual violence against indigenous peoples and how it relates to restoring land to the original Earth stewards, and a land blessing by Tongva community leader, Tina Calderon.
Each year, the ASOC Sustainability Fund hosts a pop-up fair on the main campus Quad with temporary tattoos, sustainability tabling, and free local and vegetarian foods.
The ASOC Sustainability Fund hosted an Upcycled Fashion Show in the Tiger Cooler with student-designed upcycled clothing!
The Sustainable Oxy Citizens Club (SOCC) and Sunrise Oxy hosted the first annual Earth Month Trivia in 2023 at Cannon Plaza with a themed meal from Campus Dining. The trivia event was completed by student jazz performers and a $100 gift card prize to the winning team of 4!
Each year, the UEP 247 class hosts a series of guest lectures in class that are open to the entire community. In 2023, the class welcomed Urban Homestead to chat about chickens and holistic animal care, LA Compost to speak about urban composting, and Bruce Steele (Chaparral Mountain Honey Co) to talk about pollinators!
The Sustainable Oxy Citizens Club (SOCC) brought a group of student volunteers to Descanso Gardens to remove invasive ivy!
1600 Campus Road M-6
Los Angeles, CA 90041