On April 22 Colorado State University celebrated Earth Day with an Earth Day festival and alternative transportation fair for faculty, staff, students, and the community as a whole.
“Its kind of a venue of platforms, it’s got all the different groups – on campus student organizations, departments are here, and sort of just showing off all the amazing sustainability stuff happening in our community,” said Timothy Broderick, CSU’s housing and dining services sustainability coordinator who was responsible for coordinating much of the event.
With 36 different groups there, Broderick expressed excitement over the great weather, the great turnout out, and the live music provided by the 14ers, a CSU alumni band.
The festival was part of Earth Week, a week-long celebration meant to highlight CSU’s commitment to environmental sustainability. The week featured different events like food giveaways and raffles meant to educate the public about different sustainability initiatives happening in the community.
A staff peer education group aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of campus dining services called Green Guard gave away black bean brownies and displayed several clear buckets of old food.
“We’re just bringing awareness to food waste in the dinning centers on campus, so this is what the wall of food is,” said Brittney Stuard, CSU’s dining services nutrition and wellness programs manager.
The group collected food waste from every student from four dining halls from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. the day before the festival.
Wall of compost at the CSU #EarthDay festival @CSUCollegian pic.twitter.com/Xy6BItRiuU
— Tatiana Parafiniuk-Talesnick (@TatianaSophiaPT) April 22, 2016
“It’s an awareness about wasting food,” Stuard said. “But the silver lining is that we do on-campus composting and we use it for landscaping projects on campus.”
One of the most popular booths was the Warner College Council’s plant giveaway.
“You spin the ‘Wheel of Warner’, each section is a different department in the college and we have relevant trivia questions,” said Brigid McCreery, a sophomore ecosystem science and sustainability major. “If you guess right you get a little plant, and if you get it wrong you get a sticker… everybody wants a plant so they’re all trying for that.”
Green Popsicles and local music at the LSC, how do you celebrate #EarthDay? @CSUCollegian pic.twitter.com/4cNmivu94v
— Tatiana Parafiniuk-Talesnick (@TatianaSophiaPT) April 22, 2016
Madison Wood, a junior ecosystem science and sustainability and Spanish major, came to campus early strictly to attend the event and to secure that she would leave with a plant. Last year she attended later in the day and all the plants were gone.
“So I was like, no I’m making it this year,” Wood said. “And I’m a WC university student so I’m in a club that’s over there so I’m over there for a bit today, these are my people.”
Her plan to get a plant succeeded when she answered the Warner Collage Council’s trivia correctly and picked a crassula muscosa, a Watch Chain succulent.
“It’s a really great festival, its really fun,” Wood said.
Collegian news reporter Tatiana Talesnick-Parafiniuk can be reached online at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @tatianasophiapt.
