UW-Platteville going green

The Earth Day Carnival is an event honoring Earth Day. It is hosted by the Green Campus Project where several clubs and groups on campus volunteer their time. Every booth had an activity for students to participate in. After someone participates at any of the booths, they will receive a ticket. Once they received at least five tickets, they could trade them in for several different prizes. These prizes include things from a t-shirt, or bag to candy.

The planning of the Earth Day Carnival began on September 1, 2017 and continued until the carnival on April 20, 2018. It took a lot of time to get people to volunteer, talk with campus to get things approved and promote the event.

“I really hope they [the students] learn at least one new sustainability tip, so they [the students] can get a free t-shirt after participating in at least five different booths, and I hope they took something away from at least one of the booths,” sophomore environmental horticulture major and president of Green Campus Project Valerie McGoldrick said.

Some of the booths had games including plinko made out of cans, a jump rope made completely out of plastic bags and a booth that allowed students to plant their own seeds.

One of the booths, run by campus radio station WSUP, held a ring toss where they used old glass bottles and rings from mason jars. If participants were able to land a ring on the neck of the bottle, they were then able to choose from a selection of donated CDs as their prize.

“This carnival helps students become more aware of environmental issues and it helps students become more aware of environmental conservation. They give away seeds so that students can start growing their own plants,” junior professional writing major Jacob Klang said.

Since the event was focused on Earth Day, the theme was centered on re-new, re-use and recycle. Volunteers were dressed up in protective clothing while going through trash bags from the Pioneer Student Center. They separated the trash away from the items that could be composted or recycled.

“Something I know that happens surrounding this event is that people know this event and they genuinely seem really excited about this event. We get to unite all these clubs with sustainability and we get to see that it’s not just Green Campus Project getting involved in this,” freshman psychology major and reporter for Green Campus Project Wesley Proctor said.