This year’s Earth Day theme, “Our Earth: Handle with Care” mimicked the words we often see printed on fragile packaging, but considering the state our environment is in, it fits.

What originally started as a day of education about green awareness and the environment in 1970 has become a holiday that can sometimes last a week, according to history.com’s website on Earth Day. Since then, it has expanded and grown to encompass multiple aspects of community, environment and effects on individual health.­

“In 1990, Earth Day went global with 200 million people in over 140 nations participating, according to the Earth Day Network (EDN),” the site reads. EDN is a nonprofit organization that coordinates activities for Earth Day, originally established on April 22.

EDN currently collaborates with more than 17,000 partners and organizations in 174 countries around the world and boasts Earth Day activities as “the largest secular civic event in the world.”

Armed with rubber gloves and trash bags, student volunteers kicked off Fresno State’s Earth Week on April 20 by coming together into groups and picking up litter and stray cigarette butts.

The activism on campus was part of Fresno State’s Project IMPACT 4 Life’s clean-up campaign, “Cigarette Butt Clean Up.” The group of Fresno State students have come together to address their concerns about tobacco products and the impact of such products on individual’s health and the environment. The group has two main goals: to work toward a smoke-free campus and to raise awareness about the dangers of second-hand smoke.

Volunteers met at 9 a.m. by the Memorial Fountain in front of the Kennel Bookstore on campus, where they participated in a brief training session and received their area assignments.

Also in attendance was the group’s mascot, Ciggy Butts, a giant cigarette butt.

The event ended almost two hours later with a prize drawing for volunteers. If a volunteer brought a friend to help with cleaning, he or she was given an additional chance to win.

Later, at Kuppa Joe Coffee House, children were given the opportunity to learn about one of the Earth’s natural phenomenons. The kid-friendly event from 10 a.m. to noon allowed for the chemistry and geology clubs from Fresno State to show the children how the topmost layers of the Earth’s crust filters water as it travels through the many layers.

Attending children also were given the chance to make their own filtration bottle.

On Wednesday, The Fresno Bee ran an article that called to attention the poor air quality that we experience in the Central Valley.

The article referred to a “State of the Air 2013” report released by the American Lung Association. It said California cities make up most of the top 10 list of places with the dirtiest air, starting with Bakersfield, followed by Merced and Fresno.

The next question locals may find themselves asking is, “What does that mean for me?”

The first step is to understanding the meaning of the air quality index (AQI). It is a color-coded system established by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that reports how clean or dirty the air is in a given area.

“The AQI is calculated for four major air pollutants regulated by the Clean Air Act: ground-level ozone, particle pollution, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide,” the EPA’s 2009 guide to the AQI reads. The guide explains the AQI, its functions and how it affects individual health.

The higher the number on the AQI ”” which ranges from zero to 500 ”” the worse the air quality. This has a severe effect on health of those breathing that air.

“A lot of people fail to realize the effect that poor air quality has on their bodies,” said Pamela Slabaugh, a Fresno State forensic science graduate student.

Slabaugh, who has experience with chemistry, explained poor air quality makes it difficult for oxygen to properly be accessed by the body, which in turn lowers the amount of oxygen that reaches the brain.

“You reduce the quality of your brain functioning, your sleep quality suffers and a lot of people end up suffering from allergies that they never had before,” Slabaugh said.

While the Valley has enacted projects and organizations to promote the idea of carpooling or riding your bike to school or work, it still isn’t enough to improve the air we breathe.

Slabaugh said it will take more than the minimum measures to do this, especially in an agricultural area where machines often do the process work to create products for consumption. While there is not much information about the long-term effects, she insists they do exist but that more research is required.

More information about the AQI can be found at valleyair.org/aqinfo/forecast.htm or by visiting the EPA website at epa.gov.