Earth Day 2008 Webcast-athon!

Earth Day is on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 this year. In today's Webcast Academy class of 2.4 meeting, we briefly discussed the possibility of doing some type of webcast-athon as a means to recognize and celebrare Earth Day 2008 around the globe. The idea involves a 24 hour conversation about an issue that every person on this this planet has a stake in-the health of our planet.

Here is what I am kind of envisioning at this point, and believe me, this is a total brainstorm and starting point for this project:

1. Ideally it would be nice if we could webcast for a 24 hour time period throughout Earth Day as it moves around the globe. Different people in different parts of the world would sign up for an hour long block as the lead moderator. In that hour long block they would moderate conversations with special guests.

2. Guests could include scientists, engineers, student leaders, parents who are passionate about environmental issues, teachers, local business owners, local grass roots environmental leaders, scientists in Antarctica, experts in the field of clean energy production, politicians, polar explorers, corporation sustainability representatives, etc. The sky is the limit to who could possibly participate.

3. I'm guessing that the conversations would mainly take place in English, but who knows, maybe this isn't necessary. The idea here is to get a world view on environmental challenges and solutions. If the conversations can't be in English in certain regions, perhaps that is OK and they can be transcribed into a document that is posted in the show resources (I have no idea about this as I'm very new to webcasting) .

4. All moderators should most likely either be interns or past interns of the Webcast Academy. I'm guessing we'll be streaming out via the shoutcast server at World Bridges, so it only makes sense that the lead moderator be a past or current intern.

5. If you are not a current or past intern at the webcast academy, there still will be many options for you to participate. You could co-moderate one of the hours, help with getting guests to be interviewed on the Earth Day 2008 Webcast-athon, help promote the event through your various networks, etc.

Further planning and a sign up schedule has been created online at a wiki page. Please visit this page and enter your contact information if you'd like to help out in any capacity

I look forward to your comments and suggestions on ways we can best implement the Earth Day 2008 Webcast-athon. Likewise, please let us know if you are interested in participating in any capacity whatsoever!

Photo courtesy of arimoore on flickr.