Google always reminds users of the important events, birthdays, anniversaries, inventions of some of the greatest people by dedicating its doodles. Today, to celebrate Earth Day, Google Doodle has come up with a socially responsible animated video that encourages everyone to plant a tree.
Back in 1970, 22 April was marked as Earth Day and since then it has been celebrated throughout the world to create awareness and make people responsible towards mother Earth. According to the Earth Day website, the focus would be on ‘Environmental and Climate Literacy’ and to educate the people that ‘A healthy planet is not an option it is a necessity’.
This year’s Earth Day Doodle highlights the necessity of planting trees for a healthy environment and shows us how everyone can plant one sapling at a time. The video starts with a woman reading a book under a large tree while her daughter brings a sapling to plant, followed by the generation teaching their offspring to plant saplings. This chain eventually turns into a cyclic process of growing trees to protect our environment. The Doodle video disseminates how one generation feeds social responsibilities to another generation by making them plant trees to keep our planet healthy for future generations.
Visual developer and Doodle artist Sophie Diao on sharing her creative process in creating Doodle said, “Earth Day is special every year, but this year I have grown to appreciate the grounding influence of trees. I knew I wanted to create a narrative about the importance of trees, so I started by researching everything I could about reforestation techniques and best practices. I was inspired by the stories of people who had planted trees when they were young and cared for them throughout their lives, and people sometimes as a community, other times working individuals who made it a goal to reforest a place, whether it be one the densest cities in the world or an arid desert that used to be lush and green.”
She further added, “Once I had the seed of the idea of animating a little girl growing old with a tree, the rest of the Doodle story fell into place very naturally. One person can pass a sapling to someone else, and trees can sustain through many generations of human lives. Even if each person just plants one tree, if you share it with enough people, eventually you can create an entire forest.”
With this Earth Day Doodle, Google shares a powerful message that our contribution can make a big difference. Every one of us must be socially responsible because we live on this planet and we need a healthy environment to support our jobs, livelihoods, health, and survival.
