BUCPUA Takes on the Sustainability Festival with a Notable Global Warming Trivia Game and Raffle
On Thursday, September 19th, Boston University’s Marsh Plaza was filled with students, faculty, and organizations promoting sustainable lifestyles at sustainability@BU’s annual Sustainability Festival. CPUA hosted a table — right next to some delicious smelling kettle corn — full of free swag, program information, and a fun filled trivia game with prizes!
Manned by multiple students, faculty, and interns of BUCPUA, the table had successful engagement with the BU community and many students asked questions about getting involved with the program. Flyers were being handed out left and right as multiple prospective students found an interest in the graduate and master’s programs offered by BUCPUA. There were even a handful of students interested in the new Urban Policy and Planning Graduate Certificate.
The City Planning and Urban Affairs table had continuous momentum with festival-goers as everyone took a shot at winning their choice of BU MET magnets, a BU MET reusable tote, or a BU Sustainability travel mug by participating in an eight question global warming trivia game created by Ben Cares, the UPA President.
Contestants found some questions simple and easy, since they had previously been taught certain facts. One question most contestants seemed to be able to answer right away was “which gas, contributed to the atmosphere by domesticated animals, has sped up global warming?” The answer: methane. Another question which seemed to be common knowledge for most contestants was “which of these causes the greenhouse effect?” The choices were (a) heat from cooking fires of ever-increasing population, (b) excess of nitrogen in the atmosphere, or (c) excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, with choice c being the correct answer. The general consensus was that the question was pretty intuitive for most contestants who had learned about carbon dioxide’s role in the greenhouse effect at a previous time.
Other questions were not so easy for contestants. The question which confused most contestants was “what percentage of heat from global warming has the ocean absorbed in the last forty years?” The choices were (a) 11%, (b) 35%, (c) 1%, or (d) 84%. Most contestants went with choice b because it seemed to be the most logical — contestants reasoned that 11%, 1%, and 84% were to extreme to be true. However, it turns out that choice d, 84%, is the correct answer. The fact that 84% of heat from global warming has been absorbed by the ocean in the last forty years shocked most of the contestants who participated in the trivia game.
After participating in the trivia game, students and faculty were entered into a raffle for their chance to win a bag that was made out of recycled tires.
Students and faculty learned more about available programs in the BUCPUA community, walked away with more knowledge about global warming and some awesome BUCPUA swag!
Delanie Fico, CAS ’21