From April 19 to 22, Earth Week events will be held around BC campus. There are a variety of activities that all students can participate in during the week, including a farmers’ market, film screenings, free bicycle repairs, a compost workshop and a rummage sale.
The theme of this year’s Earth Week is “Think Global. Act Local,” explained Sustainability Communications Coordinator Christian Moore. “All of our speakers and workshops and themes are kind of surrounding that overall arching theme so we try to make sure that we address local problems as well as local problems with our topics.”
Sustainability is seeking volunteers to help with the activities around campus. “We would love to have volunteers to help out throughout Earth Week,” said Moore. He explained that there are volunteer opportunities during the farmers’ market, the composting workshops and the rummage sale that the Nursing Student Association will be hosting. “They really need volunteers for that,” Moore said. There are “lots of volunteer opportunities, if anybody wants to email us we could totally set them up with an opportunity.”
One event that hasn’t been done in a while but will occur during this year’s Earth Week is a waste audit. Moore explained:
“The waste audit is getting your hands dirty, getting hands-on experience. What it is, we sort waste that we generate on campus. We’re hoping to get the C building waste from one day’s worth of waste. So you literally dump it out, sort it out and say ‘Hey, look how many compostable materials are actually in the trash that we could have composted.’ And so we weigh it and get some statistics out of that so it’s really interesting to see what’s actually being thrown out here and how we can improve our waste programs and how students can improve what they’re throwing out. Definitely makes it visible.”
Activities cover a wide variety of disciplines, and part of Sustainability’s efforts in raising awareness involves going to classes. “Capitalism and the Environmental Crisis” is relevant to students studying economics, some business instructors plan to bring their students to an event about sustainability in the airline industry that Alaska Airlines is involved with, and there is a documentary presented by the anthropology department as well.
The Earth Week schedule can be found on Sustainability’s website and students interested in volunteer opportunities can email sustainability@bellevuecollege.edu.