Earth Week encourages sustainability endeavors

Environmental activist groups on campus teamed together to organize Earth Week, a series of events to inform students of Hopkins’s environmental impact.

“The campus and all the sustainability groups wanted to make Earth Week to raise awareness on campus,” Hannah Farkas, a freshman and a member of the Students for Environmental Action (SEA), said.

Several groups, including the SEA and Outdoor Pursuits, set up booths on Keyser Quad for their Free Store event Tuesday. The groups gave out items such as stuffed animals, water bottles, bamboo utensil sets and condoms.

“They gave out an award for the greenest group on campus [to] Take Back the Tap,” Maggie Weese, another freshman SEA member, said. “This group is in charge of putting water bottle fueling stations on campus. They also monitor sinks and toilets.”

University President Ronald Daniels also made an appearance at the event, giving a speech commending the efforts made to improve campus sustainability.

“A lot of students came out to hear President Daniels’s speech, to talk about Earth Week and what it means for the campus,” Farkas said. “He also acknowledged some of the student groups, like Take Back the Tap. I think [Daniels’s involvement] is helping sustainability become a larger issue on campus.”

On Wednesday, the Hopkins Sustainability Network hosted the Green Lacrosse Game vs. Villanova, which was Hopkins’s last home game of the season. At the game, fans played games to learn about recycling and composting.

“It was supposed to be waste-free, and the Sustainability Network Student Leadership Program had a table set up at the event,” Farkas said.

On Thursday evening, SEA will show the 2012 movie The Lorax. The film, based on the Dr. Seuss book of the same name, is about a creature that tries to protect the environment.

“It was just nice to see a lot of environmental groups get together,” Weese said.

Farkas hopes that the collaboration between the group leads to greater awareness.

“I think the main goal of this week and all the events is mainly just to promote awareness on campus and get people to pay more attention to how their daily actions will affect the sustainability of this campus. We’re just trying to get this to be a more prevalent issue on campus,” Farkas said.