Modern environmental campaigns, civic milestones, and policy movements; environmental science stays under Earth or related STEM subjects.
Test your knowledge with these top questions!
Where did shoppers bring empty soda bottles to collect the bottle deposit refund?
Clerks sorted empties into wooden cases by brand before sending them back to the bottler for washing.
What material were heavy reusable soda bottles usually made of before plastic?
Washed and refilled many times, thick glass bottles lasted until throwaway plastic spread in the 1970s.
Which bottle label told shoppers an empty soda bottle could be returned for money?
Single-use bottles carried the opposite wording so clerks could separate throwaways from returnables.
The first Earth Day took place in April of which year?
April 22 was picked to fall between spring break and final exams so students could join the rallies.
What small refund did grocery stores pay for each returned empty soda bottle?
Many glass soda bottles carried a two- or five-cent deposit that made empties worth saving.
Which Wisconsin senator proposed the first Earth Day in 1970?
Nelson later received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his conservation work, including Earth Day.
About how many Americans took part in the first Earth Day in 1970?
The huge turnout helped build pressure for new antipollution laws and the EPA later that year.
What school gatherings anchored many first Earth Day programs in 1970?
Teach-ins borrowed the sit-in protest format and turned classrooms into open debates on pollution.