Walk+Run+Bike+for+Umstead+State+Park

=// Amy Huang //// | 2A //=

=The Event= On Saturday, April 21st, 2018, I volunteered as a photographer to document an event called "Walk/Run/Bike for Umstead" at Umstead State Park in Raleigh. The purpose of the event was to raise funds for The Umstead Coalition to use for service projects, environmental education, and land acquisition for the park.



The event included walking, running, biking, live music, door prizes, food, drinks, silent auctions, art vendors, environmental education booths, and more.



=Owls= One environmental education booth I visited was by a non-profit organization called The American Wildlife Refuge. It was about owls, and they had real owls there! The man at the booth taught us all about the owls including their sleep cycles, their grip strength, their behaviour, their calls, and much more. It was all very fascinating to learn about. One fun fact I learned was that if an owl has yellow eyes, that is an indicator that the owl is a dawn-dusk owl, meaning that the times the owl is awake are dawn and dusk.

The pictures below are of the Great Horned Owl and myself.



=Relation to APES= At the event, I saw that they separated the bins into compost, recycle, and landfill bins. This is related to APES because composting and recycling is much more environmentally friendly than dumping all of our trash into the landfill.

Fun fact: I learned just now (not at the Umstead event, but at home) that //tomorrow// (April 22nd, 2018) is //coincidentally// Earth Day and guess what Earth Day Network (the world’s largest recruiter to the environmental movement) //coincidentally// has to say about that? "Plastic objects that we use once and discard, or single-use plastics, are a growing critical problem of global proportion. That's why this Earth Day, April 22, 2018, is focused on Ending Plastic Pollution by Earth Day 2020, the 50th anniversary of Earth Day." - Earth Day Network

Umstead State Park is clearly (1 day) ahead of the game.



The Walk/Run/Bike for Umstead event is related to APES because the purpose of raising money at this event is for the purpose of saving RDU trails, providing more education about the environment to the public, funding awareness, etc. Also, at the event, I donated money to The American Wildlife Refuge to support what they do (operating as a raptor exclusive volunteer hospital; bringing environmental education to schools, scouts, parks, YMCA, libraries, etc.; offering wildlife rehabilitation classes through Wake Technical Community College; and more!).