Sustainable living on campus

Whether you live a sustainable lifestyle now or not, the upcoming Portland State University Earth Day Festival will surely be a motivator to make some changes. Not only that, the whole week will give you a chance to see what PSU has to offer when it comes to preserving the earth, and what our school is actually doing to keep that practice alive.

The Students for Leadership in Ecology, Culture and Learning and Environmental Club began their weeklong Earth Week celebration on Monday, and will continue to hold events throughout the week that encourage sustainability.

“There will be events like gardening, a bicycle ride, service projects at elementary schools, an open mic night sponsored by the Spiritual Life Center, and an eco-documentaries series Friday and Saturday at Fifth Avenue [Cinema],” said Lauriel Shuman, one of the main coordinators for the Earth Week events and the Earth Day festival on Thursday.

The week will end with a culminating festival of live music, art and food vendors, and sustainable projects and demonstrations.

“There’s been a few Earth Day fairs in the past,” Shuman said, “but they were usually just the Environmental Club, and now it’s student leadership groups too. So it was cool to have student group partnerships working on it.”

Shuman explained that one of the reasons they chose to hold the event specifically here at Portland State was to celebrate all the ways in which groups on campus and school initiatives are working towards sustainability.

“We thought about doing it in the community, but we decided on PSU because its goals and mission are around sustainability,” Shuman said. “They don’t do much that’s open and accessible to everyone at the school though, so we wanted to highlight what PSU has done over the course of this year.”

The Students for Leadership in Ecology, Culture and Learning and Environmental Club modeled the upcoming Earth Day Festival 2010 after the guide and principles of the 2012 London Olympics. They worked hard to meet their goals of creating an event with little impact on the environment. Those principles were: biodiversity, waste, social inclusion, climate change and healthy living.

“We wanted to address these components and educate around them,” Shuman said. “We also wanted to bring as many people together as we can. We don’t want just the kids that like the environment already, but also the people that don’t think of it as their thing.”

Shuman is excited to see the festival come together tomorrow. With countless art vendors, the musical guests and about 30 nonprofit organizations coming to set up tables, the event should be beneficial for both students, student groups and the community.

“I’m hoping they’ll get to network and see what each other are doing,” Shuman said.

Although it has been a challenge for Shuman to be one of the head coordinators of such a big event, she says she has learned a lot about how to navigate the bureaucracy of PSU and that has helped her gain confidence in her ability to lead.

“It’s been really empowering to see it work,” Shuman said. “Even though it has been hard, I think we all worked hard. Everyone has been really excited to be involved, and we just can’t wait to see it happen. And to sleep again.”