Get Your Green On

More than 2,000 students are expected at today’s Earth Day Festival on the GSU Plaza. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

Today marks the 45th anniversary of Earth Day and this year’s theme is It’s Our Turn to Lead. That theme will play out today during BU’s celebration of Earth Day at the GSU Plaza, from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Hosted by sustainability@BU, the annual celebration is the culmination of a two-week effort to promote environmentalism at BU. Students are encouraged to stop by between classes to score free goodies, like reusable grocery bags and water bottles, exchange inefficient incandescent light bulbs for energy-saving LED bulbs, make their own bike-powered smoothie, try their luck at lawn games like cornhole, and nibble on complimentary food.

For the first time, BU’s Earth Day Festival will extend its reach digitally with a clean energy tweet-a-thon. “Students can write their ideas for a clean energy future on giant blackboards and share using the hashtag #cleanenergyu,” says Lisa Tornatore, BU’s sustainability outreach coordinator. Several environmental specialists, including David Tulauskas, General Motors global sustainability manager, Joel Makower, chairman of Greenbiz Group, and Anastasia Schemkes, Sierra Club campaign representative, will monitor the hashtag from noon to 4 p.m., responding to ideas and engaging students in a conversation about sustainability. “It’s a pretty exciting lineup,” Tornatore says.

Returning this year to the Earth Day Festival is the Sustainable Arts Contest, cosponsored by the BU Arts Initiative. Entries must consist of at least 90 percent recycled materials. A panel of judges will pick winners based on creativity, use of materials, and strength of the sustainability-related theme. Among the prizes are a three-day pass to next month’s Boston Calling Festival, admission for two to the Institute of Contemporary Art, and gift cards to UBurger. Those attending can vote for their favorite work as well. Also back this year is the Chowda Throwdown, where students can sample and vote for their favorite chowder made with local ingredients by BU’s dining hall chefs. Visitors will also have a chance to add to their spring wardrobe at the UNItiques used clothing pop-up store or clean their closets of any unwanted clothes to support Goodwill’s Put Your Clothes to Work initiative, which provides business clothes to its job training graduates for interviews and work.

The 2015 Earth Day Festival also will showcase work being done by various student-run environmental groups. “We have a very big culture of sustainability at BU,” says Danielle Elefritz (CAS’15, COM’15), Student Government director of environmental affairs, noting that with over 30 green-minded student organizations at the University, “any student interested in any aspect of the environment or sustainability has the ability to get involved.” At today’s event will be representatives of the thECOlogy club, Branch Out, Students for a Just and Stable Future, the BU Outing Club, and the BU Beekeepers Club, whose members will present an observation hive show.

The festival continues tonight with an Earth Day Talk with James Lawford Anderson, a College of Arts & Sciences professor of earth and environment, and Gary Rucinski, regional coordinator for the Citizens Climate Lobby, sponsored by the Humanists of Boston University and the Environmental Student Organization. The speakers will discuss the history of the world’s climate and the impact of climate change now and in the future at 7 p.m. in CAS 211.

Earth Day–related events are planned all week as well. BU Dining Services will be serving up special sustainable lunches and dinners, featuring locally grown food, fair-trade, grass-fed beef, and other humane, third party–certified ingredients. Some of the local farmers who provide Dining Services with produce year-round will also make appearances.

Branch Out members are looking for volunteers to assist with projects at Mass Audubon’s Boston Nature Center & Wildlife Sanctuary, in Mattapan, on Friday, April 24; volunteers will leave from the Fuller parking lot adjacent to 808 Comm Ave at 3 p.m. If interested, email brancho@bu.edu. To participate in this year’s annual Charles River Earth Day Cleanup on Saturday, April 25, being held at the Esplanade from 9 to 11 a.m., register either by contacting Marsh Chapel or Branch Out at brancho@bu.edu.

The Earth Day Festival is today, Wednesday, April 22, at the GSU Plaza, from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. More information and a full list of Earth Week events can be found here.

Paula Sokolska can be reached at ps5642@bu.edu.