Science & Outdoors
Last year’s eco-fair hosted many student organizations promoting green intiatives, including the Student Government Association and the Residence Hall Association. This year’s eco-fair will continue that tradition with additional programs, including an acoustic band performance.
Eco-Fair is the main event of Earth week
Science & Outdoors Reporter
The Environmental Educators and Naturalists Association will be sponsoring the Eco-Fair on Friday April 24, 2009. The Eco-Fair will be held in the sundial and will be the culmination of a week-long observance of Earth Day.
Eco-Fair has been around since the 1970s, ever since EENA began with the help of professors, Ron Zimmerman and Michael Gross. Molly McKay, EENA president, said that Eco-Fair has always been on Friday of Earth week.
Acoustic bands play during the day and, at night, an amplified featured band plays. The bands are usually local, but sometimes bands from as far away as Green Bay or Madison are invited to come. This year the featured band is Unity the Band from the Fox Valley area, which plays reggae music.
“Unity is really good,” said McKay, “and they are high energy.”
The Eco-Fair will be held in the sundial after about a four-year hiatus and McKay said it will continue to be held there in the future. Holes will be drilled into the concrete so tent poles can be erected. The reason Eco-Fair had moved out of the sundial was because there was no way to put up a tent to protect the bands from the scorching sun or pouring rain.
This year hosts another first for the Earth week activities. Usually EENA plans all the events and other student organizations that wanted to be involved are invited to the weekly club meetings. The other student organizations did not feel comfortable with this arrangement so the Earth week committee was formed. Student organizations that wanted to be involved sent two representatives and they met every Wednesday night in the Learning Resource Center. The Earth week committee is an officially recognized organization and is funded by the university. That way more funds can be directed toward Earth week activities, but the Eco-Fair is still planned and put on by EENA.
Artists submitted t-shirt designs to an EENA-sponsored contest. The designs were voted on at the EENA meeting last Tuesday. T-shirts with the winning design will be sold at the EENA booth, and white shirts with the design can be tie-dyed at no extra cost. The price for both styles of shirts will be about $8 each; the final price is yet to be determined.
Each year, the Eco-Fair sells food and this year will be no different. A potato bar will be offered from 11 a.m. until 2 or 3 p.m. Local ice cream is traditionally served in the afternoon. The Eco-Fair is still working with Chartwells so the ice cream this year will be from Altenbergs, a local dairy.
Other student organizations will have booths around the sundial and they usually do something with an environmental twist to it.
The K-12 Energy Education Program had a stationary bicycle one year that generated electricity for a light bulb when someone rode it. Another organization gave out packets of seeds and yet another raffled off a solar backpack. A cell phone or other small electrical appliances could be plugged into the backpack.
RecycleMania will have an art show during the entire Earth week. The artwork will be made from recycled materials and the winner will be announced during the Eco-Fair on Friday. As many as thirty student organizations have been involved in Earth week in the past.
