Here are 3 ways Fond du Lac is celebrating Earth Day and Arbor Day this week

FOND DU LAC — Earth Day is April 22, and with Arbor Day on its heels April 26, Fond du Lac will celebrate both all week long.

From the Gottfried Prairie & Arboretum to the Niagara Escarpment, the natural world of Fond du Lac is often marveled, and area businesses and organizations take the spring season as an opportunity to highlight and educate about what the area has to offer.

This year, city officials, Arbor Acres and the Congregation of Sisters of St. Agnes have each planned ways to honor Earth Day and Arbor Day. Here's how Fond du Lac will celebrate the nature-focused holidays.

City celebrates Arbor Day April 26 with Roberts class planting annual tree

The City of Fond du Lac will honor Arbor Day at 1 p.m. April 26 at the Lakeside Park Pavilion, in a joint celebration with the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Fond du Lac Campus.

A Roberts Elementary School third-grade class will plant the Arbor Day tree on the park's west lakefront, courtesy of Festival Foods, which will also donate tree seedlings for the students.

Fond du Lac will also receive its 36th Tree City Award after meeting Tree City USA’s four requirements: maintaining a tree board or department, having a tree care ordinance, dedicating an annual community forestry budget of a least $2 per capita, and hosting an Arbor Day observance and proclamation.

UW Oshkosh's campus in Fond du Lac will receive the award for its fifth year of Tree Campus Higher Education status, contributing to UW Oshkosh being the only UW System school with all three of its campuses holding that status.

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Urban Forestry Coordinator Olivia Witthun will present the awards on behalf of the National Arbor Day Foundation.

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Arbor-Earth Day Festival with Arbor Acres and more returns for second year

Arbor Acres will host the Arbor-Earth Day Festival from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 27 on the north block of Main Street, between Merrill Avenue and Division Street.

The event includes a craft fair, yard games, brat fry, food trucks, drinks and live music, as well as a tree raffle benefiting Salute the Troops. The first-place prize is a Royal Raindrops Crab Apple from Midpark Nurseries Inc, including free planting from Arbor Acres.

Bay Lakes Council will host a sneaker drive at the festival, accepting new, gently used and good-condition sneakers that will be used for recycling and repurposing for those in need. Every pair donated will grant participants an entry for a chance to win a $250 Tree Work gift card from Arbor Acres.

For more information and updates, visit the Arbor Acres Facebook page.

CSA Earth Day Fair includes Earth-focused exhibitors and tours

The Congregation of Sisters of St. Agnes will host the Earth Day Fair from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. April 27 at Founders Hall at the motherhouse, 320 County Road K.

The fair will include several exhibitors showcasing how to "care for our common home," featuring Advocap, Fond du Lac County Audubon Society, Fond du Lac Bird City, Fond du Lac Public Library, Fond du Lac Wastewater Treatment & Resource Recovery Facility, Friends of Gottfried Prairie & Arboretum, Glacial Lakes Conservancy, Niagara Escarpment Resource Network and more.

New this year is a series of 45-minute presentations throughout the day, beginning at quarter past each hour and covering topics such as water treatment technologies, the Winnebago Wild Rice Revitalization Project, using eBird, the value of native plants and the Niagara Escarpment.

Tours of the property will be available, with guided tours including solar array tours, a bird walk and a two-hour in-depth tour of the land including the escarpment. Space will be limited for each, so online pre-registration is encouraged, but not required.

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Self-guided tours are welcome, but visitors exploring the property will need to sign in at the registration desk in Founder's Hall and wear a visitor's badge while on the grounds. CSA will ask visitors to stay on pathways and remember to take only pictures and leave only footprints.

The Big Blue Yummy food truck will be on site 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and a raffle will feature prizes of sustainable household products and gifts, including birdhouses, a fairy house, a native plant starter pack and an Atkinson Farm Basket.

For more information or to sign up for tours, visit csasisters.org.

Daphne Lemke is the Streetwise reporter for the Fond du Lac Reporter. Contact her at dlemke@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Fond du Lac Reporter: Fond du Lac marks Earth Day and Arbor Day with special events