In 1970, the Beatles released their last album, Let It Be, 18-year-olds were given the right to vote and Penn State celebrated the first Earth Day.

That year, environmental activists from around campus came together to celebrate the Earth. Out of the event, Penn State's environmental club Eco-Action was formed, said Benjamin Tutolo, club spokesman.

For 38 years, the club has continued to host the annual Earth Day celebrations.

This year, Earth Day festivities hosted by Eco-Action are set to take place from noon to 8 p.m. Sunday on the HUB lawn. Besides lectures, a recycling parade and other environmentally friendly activities, Earth Day will include music, dance and poetry readings.

The music for the event includes local bands The Hot Teapots, Atlas' Soundtrack, Mana, Lemonsoul and African dance band NOMMO.

For the first time, Eco-Action is adding poetry to the Earth Day event because it's an effective way of expression, Erin Roycroft (senior-English) said. Local elementary, middle and high school students will be reading poetry based on their interactions and reactions to topics relating to the environment, she said.

"Poetry is really good for communicating feelings and ideas," Roycroft said. "It's especially a powerful way for kids to express themselves to the community."

This year's Earth Day celebration has more of a local feel than in past years; all of the participating bands, speakers, dancers and other performers hail from the State College area, Eco-Action President Brittany Harris (senior-biological anthropology) said.

"We have a global society but we need to reflect on what is around us as well," she continued.

The lecture part of the event will include Penn State professor of sustainable engineering Andy Lau, who will be giving a speech on sustainable living and design. Dorothy Blair, professor of nutrition, will also talk about local and organic food choices.

Other lecturers include Charles Eisenstein, author of The Yoga of Eating and The Ascent of Humanity, and Elizabeth Goreham, State College Borough Council president, Harris said.

A new attraction at this year's event is the Path of Food.

The Path of Food is based on the Tunnel of Oppression, an interactive exhibit that ended earlier this month in the HUB-Robeson Center, which, according to thetunnel.psu.edu, was intended to raise awareness of "the realities of oppression."

The Path focuses on issues involving food such as different ways of obtaining and growing food and what's good and bad for the human body, Tutolo said.

At the end of the Path is a reaction room in which Earth Day celebrants can express themselves by using musical instruments, painting on a mural or writing poetry by arranging magnets with words on them on the recycled hood of a car, Harris said.

Some of the topics covered in the Path include high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, preservatives, terminator seeds, "natural" and "artificial" flavoring, factory-farmed meat and pesticides, Tunnel of Food coordinator Kyle Dornich (senior-geography) said.

The Path hopes to shed light on food issues in an introductory way so people can learn and then take action, Dornich said.

"If we saw things, such as exploitation in South America, people would understand and care that restaurants are throwing away good food everyday," he said.

The Path of Food will be about 20 feet long and completely made up of re-used and recycled materials such as lawn fences, dry wall and cardboard, Dornich said.

Sticking with the environmental theme, Eco-Action is powering the event with solar panels borrowed from the Center for Sustainability that were recently fixed by the group Engineers for a Sustainable World, Harris said.

Harris said the use of solar power shows the different ways people can help the planet.

"Some people are naive about issues," she said. "They need to know how to change."

Earth Day 2008 anticipates bringing more awareness to environmental problems, Tutolo said.

"It's a really cool cause and I hope people will want to come out," he said,.

Tutolo added that celebrating Earth Day is important because it marks a day people can pay attention to the planet and strive to do something good for it.

"We've been given an awesome thing to use to the fullest so why not give our children something they can use," he said.