GOINGS ON SANTA BARBARA : Festive Times : Earth Day events coincide with Presidio Days celebrations this weekend. Hopefully, lessons of the past will benefit the future.

With Earth Day observances happening along with Presidio Days festivities, Santa Barbarans will be able to plan for the world’s future while celebrating local history.

The theme for this year’s Earth Day is “Sun Day,” emphasizing safe, renewable energy sources such as solar energy.

A benefit concert featuring Michael McDonald, Jackson Brown, Christopher Cross, David Crosby and T.J. Hooker, among others, will be held at the Santa Barbara County Bowl at 6 p.m. Saturday. Call 966-7566. The festival continues Sunday at Alameda Park from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with about 60 booths devoted to environmental themes, plus an organic farmers’ market, an alternative transportation show and classes about environmental issues. Call 689-INFO.

The fifth annual Presidio Days, which celebrates the town’s multicultural heritage, will be held Friday through Sunday at El Presidio de Santa Barbara State Historic Park, 123 E. Canon Perdido.

The celebration starts at 8 p.m. Friday with the premiere performance of “If These Walls Could Speak,” a dramatization of Santa Barbara history through the eyes of five spirits that return to give their personal accounts of life during their time. The show continues at 5:30 and 8 p.m. on Saturday and 5:30 p.m Sunday.

An opening ceremony will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, followed by a day of living history. Visitors will be able to help make and lay adobe bricks, bake bread in the presidio’s reconstructed oven, watch as soldiers march and fire their 18th-Century replica muskets, and dance to music from California’s colonial period. From 1 to 3 p.m., author Richard Perry will autograph copies of his new illustrated book, “Mexico’s Fortress Monasteries.”

On Sunday at 11 a.m., there will be a performance by the River Bottom Dancers from the Chumash Indian reservation in Santa Ynez. During the afternoon, there will be Chumash storytelling, a performance by Ballet Folklorico de La Casa de la Raza, and a re-enactment of the 1793 visit of Capt. George Vancouver to the presidio. Tickets for “If These Walls Could Speak” are $5, free for children under 12. All other events are free. Call 965-0093.

Also this week in Santa Barbara, Danza Floricanto, one of the most respected Mexican folk dance troupes, will perform at UCSB Campbell Hall. The performance is at 8 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $14, $12 and $10. Call 893-3535.

The troupe’s repertoire includes traditional dances from throughout Mexico as well as those based on Mexican history. Harvest celebration dances come from the agricultural state of Jalisco, while spirited moves reflect the vitality of the southern states. Spanish heritages are honored in ranchero-style steps from early California.

“We cultivate our Mexican traditions with more fervor than do some of our relatives who visit us from down South,” said Gema Sandoval, artistic director. “ . . . for us, maintaining our cultural traditions is a political statement.”

The university will also host three events centering on feminist issues this week. Call 893-3535.

Environmental engineer H. Patricia Hynes compares women and nature as test sites for dangerous, yet profitable, technologies. Her free lecture, “The Science and Sex of Silent Spring” will be held Monday at 4 p.m. in Campbell Hall.

The documentary, “The Famine Within,” produced by Katherine Gilday, is about women’s obsession with body weight, and the rigid, almost impossible, physical standards against which women are evaluated. The film will screen at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Girvetz Theater. Tickets are $5.

Naomi Wolf will discuss her view that today’s outrageous physical standards for women are a backlash against advances made by the feminist movements of earlier generations. She will present her free lecture, “The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women,” at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Campbell Hall.

In honor of Month of the Young Child, the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History will offer special activities on Monday and Tuesday, such as a chance to see and touch objects that are normally displayed out of reach behind thick glass: whale vertebrae, sea otter fur, Indian artifacts and more. Call 682-4711. Also, kids under 5 are being offered free admission at the Sea Center during April. Call 962-0885.

Concertmaster Sheryl Staples, on violin, will be the featured soloist in the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra’s concerts at 4 p.m. Sunday and 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Lobero Theatre. The program includes Mozart’s “Haffner” Symphony, Ginastera’s “Variaciones Concertantes” and the Concerto in G Minor for Violin by Max Bruch. Tickets are $13 to $20. Call 963-0761.

Swiss pianist Andreas Haefliger will play with the Santa Barbara Symphony at 8 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday at the Arlington Theatre. Works will include Beethoven’s Concerto No. 5 for Piano and Orchestra; Brahms’ Symphony No. 2; and Schubert’s “Rosamunde” Overture. Tickets range from $8.50 to $29.50. Call 965-6596

Country singer Crystal Gayle will perform at the Allan Hancock College Sports Pavilion in Santa Maria at 8 p.m. Saturday in a fund-raiser for the school’s athletic program. Tickets are $15, $25 and $100. Call 583-8700 or 688-6628.

Chalk paintings by Central Coast artists will cover San Luis Obispo’s historic Mission Plaza in the city’s first “I Madonnari” Italian Street Painting Festival on Saturday and Sunday. Call 781-2777.