Green Festival at NOVA-Annandale on Earth Day

A previous Green Festival at NOVA. [Photo by Gary Robinette.]

Learn about environmental issues, resource conservation, and sustainable living at the free Green Festival, April 22, 8 a.m.-5 p.m., at the Annandale campus of Northern Virginia Community College.

The keynote speaker is environmentalist and CNN Top 10 Hero of the Year for 2013 Chad Pregracke, who’s made it his life’s work to clean up the Mississippi River and other waterways. He will speak at 1 p.m. A. Alonso Aquirre, executive director of the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation in Front Royal, Va., will speak at 9 a.m.

Free parking is available in lot B2 and lots B8-B17. People who register in advance will get a free continental breakfast and lunch. Come for the entire day, or just for a workshop or two.

Workshops scheduled for 10 a.m. are on renewable energy, backyard habitats, climate change, and food: farm to table. Workshops at 11 a.m. cover bat conservation, natural gas fracking in Virginia, and the “top 10 mistakes people make about climate change.” At 2:30 p.m., workshop options include raising bees, stream conservation, composting, trees of Virginia, and rain barrels.

There will be an Arbor Day tree planting at 3:30 p.m., followed by the film “Forks Over Knives” at 4 p.m. For more information on the NOVA Green Festival, contact Cheryl Robinette, [email protected].