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The Environmental Coalition at Virginia Tech is organizing a series of events next week planned around Tuesday's observance of Earth Day.

Tech students have extended the focus on environmental issues to a weeklong event for the past six years, said Tech junior Jackie Pontious, the Environmental Coalition president-elect.

Earth Day is observed by several countries on April 22 each year. Earth Week in Blacksburg is set to begin Sunday with a cleaning of Stroubles Creek, co-sponsored by SEEDS, a Blacksburg nonprofit that teaches children about sustainability and civic responsibility.

The Environmental Coalition is asking people in the Virginia Tech and Blacksburg communities to cut back on energy consumption Thursday by doing things such as using less hot water and turning off unused appliances. Virginia Tech Electric will record how much energy is used Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to see how effective Thursday's effort is, Pontious said.

Other events organized by the Environmental Coalition will include an Earth Day Fair on Tuesday on Tech's Drillfield. Student groups and Blacksburg businesses will set up booths promoting environmental awareness and highlighting things they do to help the environment. That event will be followed by a rally there at 5 p.m.

At the rally, students will call for Tech President Charles Steger to sign the Presidents Climate Commitment. The document has been signed by nearly 500 university presidents. It calls on universities to provide leadership in the fight against global warming in what they teach and what they do. The group called for Steger to sign it at a similar gathering on the Drillfield last December.

Another student group, Emerging Green Builders, is also encouraging people to limit their car use on Tuesday, declaring it "car free day."

On Friday there will be morning and afternoon tree plantings on the Drillfield and a lecture on sustainability at 4:30 p.m. in Squires Student Center.

Lectures and discussions about topics such as climate change and green architecture will take place throughout the week. In addition to being conservation day, Thursday is Mountain Justice Day and will include a speech by mountaintop removal activist Larry Gibson.

The basic idea of the week is to get people on and off campus to be more aware of environmental issues, Pontious said.

"It's really to appeal to the whole general student body," she said. "You don't have to be an environmental policy major ... to care and really help out."

For more information and a full list of Earth Week events, go to ww2.earthday.net/node/11518.