A student-led project, tree plantings and a 10-year Tree Campus USA celebration will highlight Arbor Day observances at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

The April 27 events, which are free and open to the public, include tree plantings on City and East campuses. Both ceremonies will be show live on the Arbor Day Foundation’s Facebook page.

The first planting, 10 a.m. in the Cather Garden west of Love Library North, is being organized by Megan Warbalow, a junior and interior design major. The project is part of Warbalow’s sustainability initiative that is sponsored by the Association of Students of the University of Nebraska’s Green Fund.

Her project includes a pledge to sustainability that she hopes to have signed by current deans or representatives of each college at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

“I know that Nebraska has great potential for being a leader of sustainability among other universities nationwide and I wanted to help push that movement,” Warbalow said. “My hope is that this project will inspire and motivate others to want to learn, grow and take actions towards a more sustainable lifestyle.”

The ceremony will include a plaque inscribed with Warbalow’s sustainability pledge. That pledge states: “I commit to providing leadership in sustainability practices among my respective college and its stakeholders that results in the effective, efficient, economic, equitable, and environmentally/socially responsible use of resources in the short- and long-term.”

Colleges that have committed to the pledge include agricultural sciences and natural resources, arts and sciences, business and engineering.

The university’s traditional tree planting ceremony on East Campus begins at 12:30 p.m. It will feature the planting of a heritage oak in Maxwell Arboretum. Speakers include Mike Boehm, vice chancellor of agricultural sciences and natural resources.

Both tree plantings will be featured live on Facebook as part of the Arbor Day Foundation’s weeklong, 10th anniversary celebration of the Tree Campus USA program.

Nebraska is among the first nine universities to participate in the program. The Arbor Day Foundation is visiting five of the first nine campus to broadcast tree planting ceremonies during the week of April 23. Nebraska is the final stop on the tour.

Tree Campus USA is a national program created in 2008 by the Arbor Day Foundation and to honor colleges and universities for effective campus forest management and for engaging staff and students in conservation goals. Universities earn the title by meeting Tree Campus USA’s five standards, which include maintaining a tree advisory committee, a campus tree-care plan, dedicated annual expenditures for its campus tree program, an Arbor Day observance and student service-learning project.

There are more than 300 campuses across the United States have earned this recognition.

In its decade-long participation in Tree Campus USA, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln has planted more than 2,070 trees on City and East campuses.

The Arbor Day Foundation has helped campuses throughout the country plant thousands of trees, and Tree Campus USA colleges and universities invested more than $36.8 million in campus forest management last year. Learn more about the program click here.