Spring arrived early across Long Island this year, and dozens of families are already mapping out their Earth Day weekend plans. From a shoreline cleanup in Sands Point to magnolia-lined festival grounds in Oyster Bay, Nassau and Suffolk Counties are packed with events that run April 25 and beyond.
The season’s anchor event may be the Guided Nature Walk at Sands Point Preserve, 127 Middle Neck Road, in Nassau County. The free, all-ages walk runs Saturday, April 25 from 10 to 11:30 a.m. and focuses on the quieter signs of spring: swelling buds, emerging wildflowers, animal tracks, and newly built nests. Guides will cover the plants and animals that call the Preserve home. Registration is required in advance, so don’t wait to sign up.
Right after the walk, the Preserve hosts an Earth Day Beach Cleanup from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. that same Saturday. It’s free to join, and every volunteer gets free admission to the Preserve. The goal is straightforward: keep plastic and other harmful materials out of the water. Bring your own gloves. Everything else is provided.
Oyster Bay’s Planting Fields, at 1395 Planting Fields Road, runs a two-day spring festival called Branches in Bloom: A Spring Festival Celebrating Arbor Day on April 25 and 26, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days. The $30-per-car event centers on hundreds of magnolias and flowering cherry trees near the expansive lawn west of the Main House, all at the height of their bloom. It’s the kind of sight that’s hard to overstate. Families can wander the grounds for both days on a single ticket, making it one of the better deals of the weekend for anyone who wants to spend real time outdoors.
Nassau County Museum of Art, One Museum Drive in Roslyn Harbor, hosts Super Family Saturday: Artful Earth on April 25 from 1 to 4 p.m. Tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for children. The afternoon mixes guided nature walks, local wildlife encounters, outdoor art projects, eco-friendly STEAM activities, a rain garden building station, and a nature-inspired photo treasure hunt. There’s also a guided bird walk for families who want to slow down and look up. As Long Island Press covered in its roundup of Earth Day events across the Island, the Museum’s program stands out for layering creative and environmental activities into a single afternoon.
Suffolk County has its own draw. The Whaling Museum and Education Center, 301 Main St. in Cold Spring Harbor, is running Recycled Ocean Crafts on Thursdays through Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. through May 31, with the exception of April 18. The activity is included with admission, which runs $6 to $8 depending on age, and it’s open to children 3 and older. Kids build their own sea creatures using recycled materials, and the finished pieces become part of a collective display. Self-guided and low-pressure, it’s one of the easier options for parents with younger children who aren’t ready for a two-hour walk.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation tracks Long Island’s shoreline health and coastal debris issues year-round, and local events like the Sands Point cleanup directly support that broader monitoring work. Volunteers collected thousands of pounds of debris from Long Island’s shores last year, according to state data.
Earth Day’s official date falls on April 22, but Long Island’s events stretch across the full week and weekend. That gives families real flexibility. The Sands Point walk and cleanup on the 25th pair naturally with the Planting Fields festival the same day, though Oyster Bay and Sands Point are a short drive apart in Nassau County. Families in Suffolk who can’t make the Nassau events still have the Cold Spring Harbor museum running well into May.
For families looking for additional outdoor options, Nassau County’s parks system maintains a full calendar of spring programming across its preserves and shoreline properties.
What’s clear is that this isn’t a single day of awareness anymore. It’s a week-long stretch of activity that gets kids and parents outside, connects them to the specific places they live, and gives Long Island families something concrete to do with the season.
The blooms at Planting Fields won’t last long. Neither will the weekend.