Texas A&M’s Office of Sustainability hosted the Campus Earth Day event Wednesday, April 16, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Rudder Plaza, inviting multiple organizations to educate students about the environment.
The office’s mission is not only to educate the campus and community about the importance of sustainability but also to encourage students to be effective leaders for their environment. Campus Earth Day was organized to raise awareness with several different display tables accompanied by multiple organizations, a food pantry and an engineering program specialist from the city of College Station.
The various tables in Rudder Plaza displayed details centered on implementing sustainable initiatives, such as The 12th Can, a completely student-led food pantry dedicated to serving A&M students, staff and faculty in need of assistance.
The office had its own section with multiple chances to win prizes and enter a grand giveaway. Reveille also made an appearance for students to take pictures with her from 11-11:30 a.m. Overall, the event featured more than 10 educational tables.
Biomedical engineering student Signa Foster tabled for “Project Period,” a subcommittee under A&M’s Human Environmental Animal Team, or HEAT, whose goal is to provide students with free and accessible period products. Foster had a poster board displaying a game for participants to match a picture, description and fun fact of different women’s products. Foster said she was pleased with the turnout.
“We’ve been getting quite a bit of traffic,” Foster said. “Mostly women, but some guys.”
The Texas Conservation Alliance, a statewide non-profit and a state affiliate of the National Wildlife Federation was also present. Ecology & conservation biology senior Skyler Nix said they work statewide to protect wildlife. The table was specifically about the “Lights out College Station” program, which is a lights out campaign to spread awareness on bird migration and light pollution.
“So most birds migrate at night and use things like the moon and stars to guide their migrations,” Nix said. “Whenever lights are on at night it confuses them. It increases the stopover in cities where a lot of birds end up flying into windows, in buildings or getting eaten by cats. So lights are a big director for a lot of the things that kill birds.”
Nix also discussed a collision monitoring program looking for bird building casualties during fall and spring migration. Nix had a display set up of birds that were found on campus that were killed by flying into windows.
“So it’s sad that they’re dying, but researchers will sample them for diseases and sometimes they’ll get genetic work done and tissue samples,” Nix said. “It’s sad, but we really maximize their use.”
A stormwater coordinator for the City of College Station was at the event discussing stormwater pollution and how to prevent or reduce it. Engineering program specialist David Vaughn had a graphic showing that anything going down the storm drain will end up in local waterways, streams, creeks and ponds. These things don’t go to a wastewater facility, so it’s important to be mindful of what ends up in the water such as oil, trash, pesticides, or even chemicals.
Vaughn said his goal was “to bring awareness to the student population that the storm sewer is separate from wastewater because it doesn’t get treated as important to deep pollution.”
“Earth Day, I believe, is just being more aware and appreciative of the natural world around us and trying to make ways to treat the world around us a little better,” Vaughn said.
