Students teach how to be green

By Charnika Jett
Mar. 16, 2009    ·    8:19 a.m.

GREEN Week is about to kick off at Eastern Michigan University and students are ready to spread the word about being ecologically conscious.

GREEN, which stands for Gathering Resources to be Educated about our Environment and Nature, is a student organization that hosts programs such as EcoChats and EcoArts as a way to promote ways of being ecologically friendly.

The organization, created in 2001, was formed when two students went on an alternative spring break trip that had an environmental theme. When they got back to campus, they decided to partake in different events that would help the environment.

Now that those students have graduated, Robin Miller, the student coordinator for GREEN, continues to get their message heard at Eastern. One of the ways she and other team members made this possible is through creating GREEN Week.

The event series will be held March 16-21 on Eastern Michigan University’s main campus. It consists of many events aimed at promoting environmental education and action among the EMU and the Ypsilanti communities.

This will be the second annual GREEN Week at Eastern, and Miller is excited to include more activities this year.

“Last year we got together with student government and planned a recycle week. We had recycling poker and did an event at the Rec/IM called Traskit Ball,” Miller said. “We brought people down from the audience and held a competition to see who could score the most baskets using different recyclables. It was fun and we had prizes.”

She also said she has learned a lot from some of last year’s event, which should make this year’s GREEN Week much better.

“We also built a water tower made completely out of water bottles. That was kind of funny. It was like our public art display,” Miller said. “We didn’t have a lot to go along with it, but we learned that you kind of need a message to go along with what you do.”

This year’s activities will include a panel discussion on modern food production, a vegan/vegetarian challenge, an EcoArts recycled craft night, a discussion on the ecological footprint, field trips to the Materials Recovery Center and the Environmental House, vegan cooking lessons and a screening of the Golden Globe Award winning film “WALL-E.”

Miller is excited about all of the activities that GREEN Week will offer, but she is really excited about the vegan cooking lessons.

“We’re creating a new program, called the EcoEats program and we’re giving vegan cooking lessons,” she said. “We’re also partnering up with the Students for Animal Rights group to help us facilitate the cooking lessons.

“We’re hoping this is successful, because I know a lot of vegan food has a perception that it’s expensive, but you can eat vegan and eat perfectly cheap,” Miller said laughingly “And a lot people don’t cook anymore.”

Miller also adds that this is a good way for people to come, gather and learn what it means to be vegan or vegetarian and what it means from an environmental standpoint, or a animal rights standpoint. And then afterwards, you’ll be able to eat.

Team Leader Ashley Longaker, a senior at EMU majoring in accounting, hopes students will benefit from the activities that GREEN Week will offer.

“Hopefully the students will be more environmentally conscious. After they watch the film “The Human Footprint,” they hopefully will see the results of their actions and how much of what they do actually impacts the environment.”

Hyojin Jung, a junior at EMU majoring in elementary education, is also a team leader at GREEN. She’s hoping that students realize making the smallest change makes a huge difference.

“We’re not asking people to change their entire lifestyle, she said. “Doing little things like not buying notebooks, but instead using recycled paper—things like that help make a difference.”

To learn more about GREEN Week visit their main Website