Sustainability
Environmental Awareness Club
The Environmental Awareness Club is a student group committed to promoting sustainability and informing the college on a variety of environmental topics. While the club's main objective is awareness, EAC also tackles a variety of projects each year. Current projects include eliminating Styrofoam products from the dining halls, starting a composting project, and expanding the organic garden, which was started in the summer of 2010. EAC is open to all Simpson students and meets every other Monday at 8pm in Carver. Contact an EAC Officer below for more information.
President: Kevin Rice, email: kevin.rice@my.simpson.edu
Vice President of Public Relations: Jen Draiss, email: jen.draiss@my.simpson.edu
Vice President of Activities: Heidi Scott, email: heidi.scott@my.simpson.edu
Treasurer: Casey Becker, email: casey.becker@my.simpson.edu
Secretary: Zach Huebener, email: zach.huebener@my.simpson.edu
Webmaster: Dianna Krejsa, email: dianna.krejsa@my.simpson.edu
Activities:
Green Bingo is put on twice a year, usually in collaboration with CAB (College Activities Board). Prizes include “green” items like LED light bulbs, reusable bags, water filters, houseplants, green-themed movies, and other environmentally friendly products.
Highway Cleanup is an EAC activity every fall and spring. Volunteers enjoy the privilege of wearing bright orange vests, pulling on rubber gloves, and toting bags of highway refuse and recyclables as they walk a section of 65/69. Club members have several stories to tell of items found along the highway and cleanups in the rain, but it nevertheless continues to be an enjoyable civic experience.
Green Week occurs annually in April and is a week full of green activities and awareness events. A trash audit is performed, a recycled art show with prizes is sponsored, green bingo is held, EAC prize buttons are awarded to students practicing “random acts of greenness” across campus, and other funtivities ensue.
Every semester, EAC hosts a Locavore Dinner prepared with only locally produced foods.
EAC also conducts Funtivities that usually include fun activities to do outdoors. Canoeing was on the agenda most recently.
Changes to Campus:
A recycling program was fully integrated on campus in 2006 through the efforts of EAC's first members. Recycling has since been promoted through trash audits (to illustrate what in the trash could have been recycled), recycling bin surveys (to determine where more bins are needed), and participation in “Recycle Mania” (a nationwide contest to compete for most waste recycled) is planned. Simpson will enter Recycle Mania in hopes of increasing awareness and participation in recycling among students and faculty.
Hand Dryers are now being implemented on campus, starting in Cowles Athletic facility. After significant research, Earth Corps students found that replacing paper towel dispensers with hand dryers could reduce carbon emissions dramatically. Now that the Sustainability Committee found an efficient hand dryer, the college has invested in several models as a sample. Because of the high traffic at Cowles, the cost and energy comparison for paper versus hand dryers is being made. The college will continue the project, implementing dryers in new and old buildings in the following years.
Organic gardening has now reached campus. On the corner of N Howard and Clinton, an annual garden plot has been established. The food has been used for student cooking, as snacks at EAC meetings, and given out to the student body. If you're interested in being involved with gardening, please contact Kevin Rice ( kevin.rice@simpson.edu ).
Beginning a compost program at Simpson has been a goal for EAC since the club started. Now that students have invested research into project, the the first composting efforts have begun! Two barrels are kept indoors to promote faster composting during the winter months, and a larger cumulative compost pile is being kept near the organic garden.
Check out this informational video about composting, hosted by Captain Compost! -->
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD9WIq4J2Lg
Eliminating styrofoam was a part of EAC's agenda for 2011--this has been accomplished! Pfeiffer and other dining locations have stopped using styrofoam and replaced them with either compostable products (cups, utensils) or reusable products (porcelain mugs, for example, in Pfeiffer).
The goal for spring 2012 is to promote local Campus Day mulch--we hope to by using local sources instead of cypress mulch shipped from Louisiana.
Photos courtesy of: Bernadette Hornbeck
A haiku in honor of EAC and, of course, the Earth:
Friendly to the Earth
That's the way we like to be
We are E.A.C.
Contact Us
800-362-2454 (toll-free)
or
515-961-6251 (locally)
Admissions:
800-362-2454 (toll-free)
or
515-961-1624 (locally)
Admissions office hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Mon through Fri
