Senior psychology major Breanna Morrison, vice president of the Environmental Club, collects change for children. The Environmental Club collected money from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. on Tuesday. Yiqing Fu/The Bulletin

The environmental club is looking for students with a passion for all things eco-friendly. The group plans to increase campus knowledge about going green and is aiming to be more involved in more community service projects through several new initiatives.

They want people to be aware of their presence on campus in order to make ESU more sustainable, said Karie Nicholson, club treasurer and junior accounting major.

“We want students to be aware of the impact they can make on the environment,” said Holly Glynn, club president and secretary and junior elementary education major.

Glynn said the club is centered on a positive cause and members have diverse majors and interests, but all have an appreciation for the environment as a whole. Their meetings provide a way to learn more about the environment.

“Environmental club is not a bunch of vegetarian hippies,” said Brea Morrison, senior psychology major. “We have a wide variety of interests. It’s different experiences, like camping in 20 degree weather. It’s not just about one thing. You’re always learning something.”

One way the club plans to increase awareness is through a project to restore the greenhouses next to the art annexes. Ideally, the greenhouses would be available as an indoor community garden. They are also working on receiving a grant to help provide a windmill for the greenhouses.

“It gets really expensive to power (the greenhouses),” Glynn said. “It gets really cold in the winter and the greenhouses need to stay warm, so the windmill would come in to heat (the greenhouses).”

The club has also teamed up with Alpha Kappa Lambda in order to collect “Coins for Christmas.” There will be a table set up tomorrow in the Memorial Union from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. to collect money for Children’s Mercy Hospital.

“We wanted to help do a fundraiser,” Morrison said. “We are going to give the money to teens at Children’s Mercy because they kind of get neglected over Christmas.”

At 10:30 a.m. this Saturday the club will be visiting the Catty Shack at 1018 Commercial St. to assist in cleaning the cages and to play with the cats.

“The Catty Shack used to have a person there on Mondays and Wednesdays, but now it’s closed except by appointment,” Morrison said. “The cats haven’t been getting as much attention because people usually go to clean and then leave. The cats are going to be so excited to see us.”

Not only does the club want to increase awareness, but they also want to make it easier to become economically friendly. They have helped implement new recycling bins on campus instead of the standard prototype and hope to travel to elementary schools in the area sharing different ways to recycle and how to recycle.

Susan Welte

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Aimee Dento, junior environmental biology major, Chris Dvorak, junior secondary English education major and Paul Mose, junior communication major, plant a red bud tree Wednesday evening on Mores Hall Lawn. Kellen Jenkins/ The Bulletin

Members of the environmental club planted a redbud tree on the Morse lawn last night in honor of Green Week. The tree was donated by Davies Nursery, 1601 Prairie St.

“Redbud is a good ornamental tree because it doesn’t grow too big and they do well with all the shade trees that grow around here,” said Aimee Denton, junior environmental biology major and vice president of the club. “It’s a symbolic gesture.”

On Monday the club showed the documentary “Food, Inc.,” which explores the inner-workings of America’s food industry.

Lacee Hanson, senior communications major and president of the club, said Tuesday’s trash dig yielded around 30 pounds of recyclables, collected from various locations around campus yesterday. Hanson said the trash dig had a “pretty good” turnout since recyclable items are generally lightweight.

“It’s amazing how much good you can do just by doing small things like recycling. If you went through the average person’s trash through the year who didn’t recycle, probably about a third of it would be recyclable if not more,” said Paul Mose, junior communications major and member of environmental club. “You don’t have to be a vegetarian to help out the environment.”

The group will host a vegetarian potluck dinner from 5-7 p.m. tonight in Wilson Park. Denton said vegetarianism is one of the most environmentally conscious lifestyles a person can choose.

“Resources are finite,” Mose said. “I think it’s easier for us to go to gas station and just fuel up our cars because you don’t really see the scarcity (of resources). Because of that, we have an obligation to make sure the earth keeps running – earth is good.”

Friday is Earth Day and the club will celebrate by advocating alternative means of transportation. Members and those interested will meet at 5:30 p.m. at Hammond Park for a bike

“If students are interested, hit us up on Facebook – we’re not scary, we’re not creepy environmentalists or weird hippy tree-huggers,” Hanson said. “We’d love to hear new perspectives.”

Kenzie Templeton

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Junior Physical Education major, Sarah Banta and junior elementary education major Tamera Ridenour work to free their selves from the Velcro Wall at the Nickelodeon Kick Back hosted by UAC Wednesday night in at the Student Recreation Center. Kellen Jenkins/ The Bulletin

The Union Activity Council’s Visual Arts and Variety Entertainment committees hosted a Nickelodeon Kick Back yesterday evening at the campus Recreation Center. Other campus groups helped sponsor the event including Sodexo, Kansas National Education Association, Campus Crusade for Christ and the Environmental Club.

“It’s kind of an end-of-the-year blowout,” said Eden Tullis, junior English major. “We didn’t get to have Flintstock (an annual music event usually hosted by UAC) this year because we didn’t have the budget for it, so we’re having this big blow out.”

Tullis said her favorite Nickelodeon show was “Doug.”

The event had corn dogs, showings of “Hey Arnold!” and “Rugrats,” a Velcro wall and some participants were even slimed. As the participants filtered in, they were offered an opportunity to enter a drawing, but the winners were surprised by getting slimed.

“It is the actual Nickelodeon slime – we got all the ingredients for it,” Tullis said.

The event was chosen by UAC to bring inspire nostalgia and remind people of the ‘90s decade. Some of the members came dressed in costume like John Alvary, sophomore secondary education major, who was dressed as Quail Man, the superhero alias of the character Doug from T.V. show “Doug.” He chose the costume because “Doug” was his favorite Nickelodeon show.

“The event gets back to the old school days when you were young and would wake up in the morning and say ‘Hey look, a cartoon.’ I think a lot of us have forgotten our inner child a little bit,” Alvary said.

The co-sponsoring groups all had tables set up during the event. The Environmental Club offered turning in recyclable items for opportunities to win more prizes throughout the night.

Due to concerns with the weather, the group had to move the event from the Morse Hall lawn, but this did not hinder any of the events.

More than 75 students showed up for the event and many tried out the Velcro wall with varying degrees of success. The wall was not for Erin Ritter, sophomore recreation and sociology majors, who said her favorite Nickelodeon show was “Rugrats.” She thought that the wall was a cool idea but chose not do it herself.

Charlie Heptas

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Ellise Hauth, senior sociology major, Jon Leach, graduate student of applied linguistics, and Akiyo Otsuki, freshman communications major, pick up trash Tuesday afternoon on Commercial Street. Emporia State students cleaned up parts of Commercial Street as part of Green Week. Jonathan Elliot/The Bulletin.

Green Week 2010, sponsored by Environmental Club and Emporia State University Young Democrats, was held this week in correlation with Earth Day. The week long event included activities like a trash dig, downtown cleanup, ZOIKS! environmental charity show, documentary and lecture about wasting plastic, tree planting and vegetarian picnic, among others.

“The purpose of Green Week is to get students and community members involved in fun activities that raise awareness about environmental issues,” said Jennifer Hartman, president of Environmental Club, “There are a lot of stereotypes about people who care about the environment, and this is a great opportunity to show people that you don’t have to wear hemp and not take showers to be an environmentalist.”

The Trash Dig Collection was held on Monday in Union Square to encourage students to go around and look for things that they normally throw away but actually can be recycled.

“We did the same thing last year and nearly 400 pounds of recycled things were found for just one day,” said Chris Dvorak, junior English major, who helped to collect recycled trash in Union Square as a member of the Environmental Club. “Through this we can show students how much recycling we can collect in one day that we would normally throw it away. We want to bring awareness of recycling through this.”

Another activity—Downtown Clean Up, was held on Tuesday afternoon. Students were sent to 12th and Commercial Street to help cleaning up recycled trash. According to the Environmental Club, at least six bags of trash were collected in just one afternoon.

The Environmental Club also did some renewal to make this Green Week even better than last year. Zoiks performed an entertaining environmental charity show in Memorial Union Kanza Room on Tuesday night. Luke Ball, art education major, performed in the charity show as a member of the ZOIKS! group.

“It is a regular Zoiks comedy just like other shows that we gave on campus before. Of course we performed it for the Environmental Club and the Green Week, but our theme is we also want to make people laugh,” Ball said.

Donations for the Environmental Club were collected during the show.

“Though I was not so familiar with Green Week before, this interesting show attracted me to come here tonight and I found that it is really fun,” said Marcell M. Stewart, criminal justice major.

Through these events, the environmental club aimed to promote a campus recycling program within this year.

“My hope is that Green Week brings attitudes to people who wouldn’t necessarily consider themselves environmentalists but feel strongly that if we all work for the common good—if we all work to protect people, animals, land, water, air, etc.—then we can truly change the world,” Hartman said. “If you want to do something today that has a huge impact and is really easy, stop buying and drinking bottled water.”

Green Week will conclude with a Tree Planting at 5 p.m. today on Morse Hall Lawn where members of ESU’s administration and Associated Student Government will be present. A vegetarian potluck dinner will immediately follow.

In case of inclement weather, the tree planting ceremony will be moved to 6:30 p.m. on April 28. The potluck dinner will still be held today but will be relocated to 1016 Constitution St. For more news about the relocation of events, check BuzzIn anouncements.

The bike ride planned for tomorrow will be held at 5:30 p.m. on April 30. For more info about these events go to http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/pages/ESU-Environmental-Club/345962082190?ref=ts.

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As an inquisitive environmentalist, I’m always trying to learn more about what I can do to help the planet. This column will be an ongoing list of tips and tricks that any college student can employ to lessen their impact on the environment.

With all of these tips the important thing to remember is that though they might seem insignificant, it is about getting into the habit of daily activity that will make the difference. Getting one person to recycle one bottle might not make a big impact, but if we can get a thousand people to recycle every day, then we’d start to see a change.

For the first tip I want to address one of the easiest ways we can reduce our energy consumption at home and at school. I’m talking about combating vampire energy. Vampire Energy, also known as standby energy, is a term that refers to energy that is consumed when appliances and electronics are in idle mode.

Take your cell phone charger for example. When it’s plugged in, even when your phone isn’t charging, it still draws power. Though the amount of energy that is eaten up by unused, plugged in appliances is relatively small, it can quickly add up. Think of all the different appliances you have plugged in at home and times it over the course of a year.

According to one Web site on energy consumption, vampire energy costs America almost $4 billion annually. It accounts for 1 percent of the nation’s carbon emissions. That’s a lot of energy considering it’s from just appliances sitting around not being used.

And cell phones are just the tip of the energy iceberg. TVs, computers and microwaves use up way more energy, just while sitting there. It’s wasted through simple idling.

So what can be done? First and foremost, you can start unplugging your appliances. Just remembering everyday to unplug your cell phone charger, TV or laptop will save a percent of that energy.

The next step would be investing in EnergyStar appliances. These energy efficient machines can help reduce your idling energy up to 70 percent, according to the EnergyStar website.

Another really simple action we all could take right now is to remove the screensaver from our computer. Like many of us I was raised to believe a screensaver was helping the computer save energy. The truth is screensavers prevent the computer from entering its full idle mode.

If you are leaving your computer for an extended period of time, 20 minutes or more, turn off your computer. Following that put the computer into rest mode and shut off your monitor.

You might not notice the drop in your electricity bills, but on the large scale, if groups of people start this action, then we can see a difference. This advice could reduce carbon emissions by half a percent nationally, or the same as removing 18 million cars from the roads.

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Harrison George

Recently, www.cnn.com ran an article documenting one of the most surprising side effects of James Cameron’s epic “Avatar.” More than 1,000 people have commented on “Avatar” fan sites, claiming they are experiencing severe depression in trying to deal with the fact that they will never live on a world like Pandora.

More than that, they are disappointed in the world around them as it does not possess the splendor and beauty of Cameron’s fictitious planet.

For those who spent their winter break on the moon, let me catch you up.

“Avatar’ is now the highest grossing film in history. It has revolutionized film for the next 50 years and has made Cameron richer than 3 Jay-Zs.

 But, on a smaller scale, it has created a new form of depression called Post Avatar Depression Syndrome.

While you won’t find it in any text books any time soon, it’s already spread around the country and has filled many a fan site with those suffering from it.

Fans have been chiming in since the movie premiered last month with their own testimonies on how the movie affected them. According to www.cnn.com, one fan said, “I was depressed because I really wanted to live in Pandora, […] but I was also depressed and disgusted with the sight of our world, what we have done to Earth.”

Another commenter simply stated, “I still don’t really see any reason to keep … doing things at all. I live in a dying world.”

Now, I have not seen “Avatar.” As an outsider my initial reaction to this hysteria is “What’s wrong with Earth?” Sure we don’t have dinosaurs and giant neon flowers all over the place, but our planet is still a world of wonder and beauty.

As an outspoken advocate for the environment and member of the ESU Environmental Club, I have to say I’m surprised to hear these people’s comments. Those who say the Earth is not a magical place surely have not looked hard enough.

Have you watched the “Planet Earth” documentary? The one filmed in over 64 countries and 200 locations? The one that documented over 10 new events and species never before filmed? You cannot watch that and tell me there is not beauty still waiting to be discovered on this planet

I remember how I felt after watching “Planet Earth” for the first time. I was swelling with pride and admiration for my planet. And those feelings only fueled my desire to keep the planet clean and safe even more.  It’s part of why I got involved in the Environmental Club in the first place.

            Environmental issues can be overwhelming. Working on something that large-scale is bound to make your efforts feel unimportant from time to time. But the great thing about progress is that even a little progress is better than no progress.

            Look at the work the ESU Environmental Club has done. Since I’ve been in it, we have started work on a campus-wide recycling program, planted trees on campus, brought important speakers to campus and dug through quite a few trashcans for bottles and cans.

And if you think the connection the Na’vi people had with their planet was a fantastical as the dinosaurs, I have news for you – it’s possible for humans to have that same connection.

Check out the book “Ecotopia” by Ernest Callenbach. The book explores a world where humans have returned to the land and lives in harmony with it instead of opposition. It’s fiction, but it’s much closer to reality than that of the Na’vi.  We could have that connection we had enough people willing to make the change.

I’ll be the first to admit this planet is not perfect. We’ve got tsunamis, pollution, endangered species and a lot of garbage piling up. But that’s all the more reason we need people to work to improve things.

 If you’re dissatisfied by the way things are, get involved! Use those feelings as your motivation and you’ll see it isn’t hard to make a little difference in your local environment.

Has Environmental Club saved the planet? No. But we’ve made a lot of progress in the community and on campus and we are building awareness about important issues. Being an environmentalist is not just about noticing what is wrong with the planet. It’s also about loving all the things that are great about it.

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Jen Hartman, graduate student of library science and President of Environmental Club, discusses ideas of how Emporia State University could be more environmentally friendly and save money during the Environmental Club meeting Monday night in the William Allen White Library. One idea presented was to purchase devices that would automatically turn of computers across campus in the evenings as to save electricity and money. Jonathan Elliott/The Bulletin

Emporia State’s Environmental Club discussed plans for this semester’s activities and club events at their first meeting of the semester on Monday night in the William Allen White Library.

            “We can do really easy stuff to help the environment and a lot people don’t know about them,” said President Jen Hartman, master of library science graduate student. “We can help by making ourselves known on campus.”

            The club’s first meeting began with some icebreaker activities and then quickly turned to means for helping increase the awareness of the environmental club on campus.

            “We’re holding an environmental forum on Feb. 15 so people can ask questions about the club and how they can get involved,” said Lacee Hanson, junior communications major. “We have a big goal of getting the dorms involved in some sort of recycling program.”

            Also discussed were the club’s aspirations to participate in the Clinton Global Initiative that recognizes and awards universities that benefit their community in a universally effective way. The club’s most prominent idea was the installation of “smart strips,” which are a type of energy saving power strip that shut off electronics that would normally just be in hibernate mode or left on.

            “The university as a whole could save up to $80,000 a year,” Hartman said. “Technology and computing services estimates it would probably cost between $12,000 and $20,000 to install them around campus but in that respect they’d pay for themselves within the first year.”

            The club also laid out plans for a movie that will be showing in the Kanza Room at 7 p.m. on April 21 called “Addicted to Plastic,” with the director of the film being available for a discussion directly afterwards.

            In the middle of the meeting the club received unexpected help from local attorney James Bordonaro who offered to pay for the club’s recently created t-shirts.           “Consider this my contribution,” Bordonaro said. “Any of you who want one and haven’t bought it yet, I can cover it.”

            After the unexpected announcement by Bordonaro, the club proceeded to continue brainstorming ideas for events for the upcoming months including film sessions, recycle bin decorating, and a monthly theme.

            The meeting’s largest focus, besides the obvious environmental concerns was the emphasis placed upon working together.

            “We have a business major, some environmental biology majors, and all sorts of talents in here,” Hartman said. “What we need to do now is utilize these talents to make some progress happen here in Emporia.”

            In the past, the club has helped sponsor Green Week activities that fall on the same week as Earth Day and the club plans to utilize the week to raise awareness at ESU, Hartman said.

ESU environmental club meets every Monday at 7 p.m. in the William Allen White Library.

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PHOTO ILLISTRATION BY KELLEN JENKINS

Wednesday, April 22 will mark the 39th time that Earth Day has been celebrated in the U.S.

Emporia State’s Environmental Club, along with the Young Democrats, has planned a week of green activities to coincide with Earth Day.

“Our main objective is to build a culture that values sustainability, that values environmental issues,” said Jen Groves, graduate student in library sciences and president of Environmental Club. “There are still a lot of people who don’t know that we exist.”

Throughout the entire week, members of the Environmental Club will collect recyclables on Main Street in the Memorial Union from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Each time a student brings items to be recycled, he or she will receive raffle tickets for prizes that will be given away on April 23.

A clean-up of Campus Woods has been scheduled for Monday. Students will be provided with gloves, trash bags and trash grabbers.

“We’ll take everything that can be recycled and recycle it and put everything else in the trash,” Groves said.

From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday in Union Square, students will be invited to participate in a trash dig.

“We’re encouraging everybody to pick out (recyclables) that they find in trash cans,” Groves said. “We’re going to show how much stuff gets thrown away on campus. We want to demonstrate to administration that there is a need for recycling on campus and that people would support that. If we have a bunch of students digging through the trash, I think that sends a pretty good message that people are dedicated to it.”

Groves, along with Harrison George, junior sociology major, will give a presentation at 6 p.m. in the Heritage room on Tuesday. The speakers will focus on five things that all people can do to be more green.

“We’re green ambassadors for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment,” Groves said. “It’s about five different things that people can do to make Kansas a cleaner state.”

New greenery will be planted at 5 p.m. Wednesday on campus. The tree, a flowering crab apple, is a native species of Kansas. Many of these trees were previously on campus but died.

“We have the okay to plant them back where they used to be,” said Annabel Osburn, senior social science major and president of Young Democrats.

Members of Environmental Club will also collect recyclables at Flintstock on Wednesday night.

Thursday will close out the ESU’s Green Week celebration with a showing of “March of the Penguins” at 6 p.m. in Science Hall room 72. Drawings for the raffle will take place as well. Students must be present to win.

Prizes include gift certificates to Walburn’s and Family Video, cookies from Amanda’s Bakery, reusable grocery bags and a bicycle.

On April 25, Flinthills Mall will host Ecomania, where local businesses and organizations will be present to inform the community about themselves. Attendees will be able to participate in games and activities.

“There’s a recycled sculpture contest so some people are making giant earths out of aluminum cans,” Groves said.

Environmental Club has also purchased 20 recycling bins that they will donate  to the university. Groves said that it has not been determined where they will be placed or what materials they will be accepting.

Earth Day started in 1970 as a grass roots movement that began at the college level. Former Sen. Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin and Denis Hayes, the first national coordinator of Earth Day, wanted to protest the U.S.’ abuse of the environment and its resources, said Ryan McLaren, Earth Day Network campus organizer

“It was a very grass roots thing that exploded in 1970,” McLaren said. “There was a whole lot going on at that point about protecting the environment, especially natural resources.”

Nelson advocated for Earth Day to become a national holiday.

“Since then, it’s been the day around the country where people stop and think about the environment and do something good to give back to the earth,” McLaren said. “They were really concerned about how we were taking our natural resources for granted. Senator Nelson and Denis Hays thought that the U.S. was really destroying a lot of the great natural resources. They’re really hadn’t been any serious legislation to address those issues.”

Kansas wind energy has been a topic of interest for those who are looking for alternate ways to use natural sources of energy.

Renewable Energy Systems Americas has placed a wind data tower at Highway 170 and Road U in Lyon County.

“We put up an Anemometer on April 7,” said Scott Dunaway, spokesman for RES Americas “It studies wind speed, temperature, direction and pressure. We’re studying it for a potential wind project. We’ve selected that area just to collect data.”

Dunaway said that it is undetermined how long the tower will be there and if a project will actually result from the data collection.

Jim Ploger, climate and energy program manager for Kansas energy office, said that there are dozens of developers that have towers in various places in Kansas and that the developers don’t have to tell the Kansas energy office about the towers they place.

Ploger said that it is rare to find a tower in Lyon or Osage county because developers generally tend to stay away from the Flint Hills area.

Wind energy is harvested by wind machines that use blades to collect the wind’s kinetic energy. The blades are connected to a drive shaft that turns an electric generator.                      When the wind isn’t blowing, other types of power are used to make electricity, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Wind farms have dozens of wind machines scattered over a large area. The prospective development could cover an area of 25,000 acres, 22,000 in Lyon County, according to KVOE news.

In 2006, wind machines created enough energy to power 2.4 million households nationwide, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Ashley Peaches/The Bulletin

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