Seeing green

The University of Iowa is celebrating Earth Month throughout April with numerous activities including a waste sort, tree plantings, sustainability-related presentations and movies, and a ride-your-bike-to-work/class campus day.

The opportunities are being provided through a collaboration involving UI students, faculty and staff, the community and the UI Office of Sustainability. A full list of Earth Month events is available here. A sampling follows:

• A screening of the environmental education documentary “Mother Nature’s Child” at 7 p.m. Tuesday April 10 and 5:30 p.m. Tuesday April 24 in the Illinois Room (348 Iowa Memorial Union).
• Campus Stewardship Days with UI Facilities Management Building and Landscape Services crew will be held 8:30-11:30 a.m., Tuesday April 10 and 1-4 p.m., Wednesday April 11 near the Boyd Law Building and 8:30-11:30 a.m., Monday April 23 and 1-4 p.m., Wednesday April 25, west slope near the College of Public Health. Work will involve planting tree seedlings and combating garlic mustard.
• Recycling at the spring football game, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday April 14, Kinnick Stadium.
• Beehive Design Collective environmental art exhibit along with folk music from Thistle and Thorns, 7 p.m. Wednesday April 18, Old Brick.
• Bike to Campus and Work events in the morning and afternoon of Friday April 20 outside Kinnick Stadium and the Pentacrest, including snacks and beverages for bikers and a free raffle.
• UI Environmental Coalition’s Treasure Trade, 11 a.m. — 6 p.m., Friday April 20 at Hubbard Park. Students, faculty and staff are encouraged to bring used items (clothing, accessories, appliance, books, etc.) to the event. There, they will get a ticket for each item they bring in and use these tickets to ‘purchase’ what others have brought to the event.
• Waste audit 9-11 a.m., Friday April 20, at the State Hygienic Lab with the ECO Hawks and UI Facilities Management, who will help the lab create strategies for reducing or diverting waste and improving recycling.
• Open house, tours and workshops at the UI Student Garden is set for 1-5 p.m., Sunday April 22.
• A Sustainability Festival for creative works will be held 3-6 p.m. Friday April 27, John Deere Plaza/Second Floor Lobby of the Seamans Center. The event will showcase of creative academic projects in sustainability, as well as an abstract contest about the significance of sustainability studies.

Students are also showing their environmental awareness through art. Andrew Desforges, a graduate student in design printmaking at the UI School of Art and Art History, created the images for UI Earth Month poster and t-shirts around the theme “Help sustain Iowa’s water and food resources.” The design uses an apple that contains a farm scene flowing into a body of water to represent the growth of food and conservation of clean water.

Posters are available from the Office of Sustainability, 1680 University Capitol Centre; t-shirts will be distributed at various Earth Month events.

For more information or special accommodations to attend any of these events or activities, contact George McCrory at 319-335-5517.