Laura Baird will speak about the ethics of national park visitation at Coastal Carolina University on Wednesday, March 4, at 4 p.m. in the Board of Visitors Conference Room. This event, sponsored by the Jackson Family Center for Ethics & Values, is free and open to the public.

Baird is representing the Leave No Trace Outdoor Ethics Center, which teaches people to enjoy the outdoors responsibly, and she will discuss several solutions to this challenge. More than 30 million people visit public wilderness areas each year, which ends up causing major damage to state and national parks, resulting in visitors literally loving the parks to death. Because of this, are people morally obligated not to visit national parks?

Baird graduated from CCU in 2005 with a degree in marine science and went on to get her master's degree in forestry/recreation ecology at Southern Illinois University. She is currently a nature center volunteer at the Myrtle Beach State Park and is a member of Leave No Trace, an organization which vows to grow a nation of outdoor advocates to put environmental awareness into action.

The Board of Visitors Conference Room is in room 164 of the Edwards Building, located at 133 Chanticleer Drive W. on the Conway campus. Parking is available behind the building or adjacent in Brittain Hall.

For tickets, call Nils Rauhut, director of the Jackson Family Center for Ethics & Values, at 843-349-2547. The office is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m to 5 p.m.