The Ann Arbor area's Earth Day Festival is being hosted at Washtenaw Community College.

The festival will be held Sunday, April 25, from noon to 4 p.m. at Washtenaw Community College, 4800 E. Huron River Drive, in the Morris Lawrence Building.

The festival will feature 60 local, nonprofit environmental exhibitors with information and hands-on activities. It will include Earth Day music such as acoustic entertainment with WCC staff, Renee Stokley and her handmade cigar box guitars and WCC student singer-songwriters with original Earth Day compositions.

It will also highlight the "All Species Parade," in which participants young and old wear costumes representing their favorite plants and animals. The parade begins at 2:30 p.m. and winds through the event area. The celebration will be a "zero-waste event," which means all waste will be composted or recycled with nothing going into a landfill.

The Ann Arbor Earth Day festival is still recruiting volunteers to assist with on-site coordination at WCC during the event. Volunteers will be needed for a variety of positions.

The Washtenaw Bicycling and Walking Coalition is offering free guarded valet bicycle parking for the duration of the event. The service is meant to encourage those attending to consider bicycling to there by using the county Border-to-Border Trail. Maps are available at www.bordertoborder.org.

Volunteers needed for nature preserve cleanup

Volunteers are needed for an event to celebrate National Youth Services Day hosted by the Legacy Land Conservancy.

The event is a stewardship workday at the Beckwith Conservancy Nature Preserve in Stockbridge on Saturday, April 24 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Volunteers will assist cleaning up the nature preserve, removing invasive species and readying the trails for the spring and summer months. No prior experience is necessary.

The Beckwith Conservancy is located in the Village of Stockbridge. Visitors should park along the north side of M-106, just east of Maple Street at the east end of the woods. For more information, visit www.legacylandconservancy.org, or contact the Conservancy at info@legacylandconservancy.org or 734-302-LAND.

Learn about rebates for home appliance

The Clean Energy Coalition's Green Classroom Series will offer a new presentation on earning rebates for home energy efficiency upgrades.

One of the presentations, called "Michigan's Energy-Efficiency Appliance Rebate: How does it work?," will outline the rebate program, including eligibility, how to register for the rebate, when the program will end, and additional incentives available for these purchases. During a second portion of the program, presented by Big George's, participants will take a tour of the appliance store to learn more about energy-efficient appliances and which ones qualify for the rebates.

The presentations will be held Wednesday, April 14 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 pm.

The event, to be held at Big George's, 2023 West Stadium Blvd. in Ann Arbor, is free and open to the public. Those who pre-register at http://shop.cec-mi.org and attend will be entered to win a $50 Big George's gift card.

Open call for water quality measuring volunteers

The Huron River Watershed Council needs volunteers to help collect data in local streams for the 2010 spring and summer season.

No prior experience is needed. Volunteers will work in teams to perform activities like collecting water samples and direct water quality measures, measuring stream flow and collecting samples during or following rain storms.

The information collected is analyzed and presented to elected officials and decision makers from local units of government in Washtenaw, Wayne and Livingston counties, Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment and the University of Michigan.

An introduction and training session will be held April 17 at 1 p.m. at Island Park in Ann Arbor. For more information, visit http://www.hrwc.org/.

To get information about a local environment event or announcement mentioned in the Tuesday environment briefs, contact reporter Tina Reed at tinareed@annarbor.com, call her at 734-623-2535 or find her on Twitter @TreedinAA.