Florida Tech Sustainability

Did you know Earth Day started with students?

"Senator Nelson wanted to infuse the energy of student anti-war protests with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution.... Senator Ga***rd Nelson recruited Denis Hayes, a young activist, to organize the campus teach-ins and to scale the idea to a broader public, and they chose April 22, a weekday falling between Spring Break and Final Exams, to maximize the greatest student participation."

This spirit persists, not just today, but every day. What does Earth Day mean to you?

https://www.earthday.org/history/

If you pass by these colorful grasshoppers- leave them be! These not-so-small critters are juvenile native Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers.

Big broods + big appetites + big personalities = big ouch.

Lubbers emerge from March to June every year. Normally, the adults are the most visible (growing up to three inches long!), but juveniles can be seen, especially during large breeding events. Lubbers have preferred plants but are not picky eaters. Landscapers and gardeners know this latter fact too well, and tend to regard Lubbers as costly pests.

Lubbers are happy to devour the landscaping, but please do yourself a favor and... don't bite back. Predation is low for a reason: clever loggerhead shrikes alone have found a way to neutralize lubber venom. Humans can survive eating their toxins, but lubbers will still hiss and chomp and spray stinky stuff at you if provoked.