Campus Sustainability and Geaux Green hosted Spring Greening Day and a sustainability expo on Thursday to plant native and perennial greenery in front of the Student Union and highlight organizations that are advancing sustainability on campus in preparation for Earth Day on Saturday.
Volunteers spent the afternoon on their hands and knees getting dirty to improve the landscape from Tower Drive to Highland Road.
The event was made possible through a grant from Keep Louisiana Beautiful, according to Tammy Millican, the executive director for facility and property oversight at Campus Sustainability. LSU Auxiliary Services also provided funding.
Volunteers including students planted 12,000 plants covering more than 17,000 square feet of ground, according to the LSU Campus Sustainability social media post.
“When students arrive on campus it’s important for them to learn to live sustainably because they are going to take that back out into the world once they graduate,” Millican said. “We can make a real difference in the entire world if we start learning those skills here.”
Christina Pleasant, a kinesiology freshman, volunteered at the Spring Greening Day because she enjoys helping out on campus and making a difference.
“LSU is a big-name school, so the fact that you can get students on board to contribute, it just means so much more and helps people care about how they treat the campus,” Pleasant said. “It makes you feel good about yourself when you’re helping something that you’re so heavily involved with, which is the campus you walk on every day. So, get out and do service hours. It’s fun.”
Along with Greening Day, organizers held a sustainability expo, which Millican explained as “an opportunity for us to learn about what’s happening on campus in terms of sustainability – research that we’re doing, student organizations who are focused on sustainability and the way we are operating, products that are offered that are green.”
Organizations such as the LSU Ag Center, LSU Pollinator Gardens, Geaux Planet, Geaux Green and the LSU Olinde Career Center showcased their sustainability initiatives.
At the expo, Geaux Green, an environmental club, provided recycling polls to gauge students’ interests in campus recycling programs and determine the effectiveness of recycling, director of Geaux Green Emily Clarke explained.
“We really want to know what students believe so that we can help Campus Sustainability start marketing recycling practices better to students or just improve [them] in general,” Clarke said.
Geaux Green aims to educate students on the importance of sustainability because of the larger impact on our world.
“Sustainability is the only future that we have. It’s the only option whether or not we see it that way,” Clarke said. “That’s really the truth. We’ve done a lot of damage to our environment and our planet. Options are looking kind of slim for actually having a healthy environment and life in the future in general, so promoting sustainability in any way, especially to students, can make a difference.”
Similarly, Geaux Planet brought awareness to the climate crisis by educating people who visited their table on the causes of global warming and the main threats of climate change.
“Louisiana specifically is an area that’s suffering the consequences of the climate crisis due to things like sea level rise and coastal erosion, so we are trying to spread awareness and make sure people are taking actions that mitigate this issue,” said Cheyenne Autin, the president of Geaux Planet.
Geaux Planet works to educate people on the climate crisis and encourage students to limit their carbon footprint by promoting walking, biking and taking the bus, Autin shared.
Another exhibitor, the Horseshoe Gardening Club, focused on education about the use of pollinator gardens in front of Evangeline Hall to attract bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects. Hollie Hale-Donze, the science residential college rector, said she hopes this program becomes a legacy-garden to help teach science.
“We are a science residential college and so we would like to offer programming,” Hale-Donze said. “We have students who are interested in the environment, so it gives them the opportunity to come together. It’s just another outlet for them to have some programming that gets them outside, gets them away from studying all day.”
Beyond environmentally focused offerings, the career center provided an opportunity for students to practice upcycling by donating or receiving clothing from The Tailored Tiger, which is coming to LSU this fall.
“It is a space to support students at LSU and their need for professional attire,” said Sharalle Arnold, manager, career preparation, at the Olinde Career Center. “Any student at LSU can come to The Tailored Tiger to come in and seek out gently used or new, clean, professional clothing, so they can be ready for any career fair, interview, networking event.”
Arnold added, “I think it’s important for students to take part and get involved in these activities because it’s a shared responsibility. It’s for the Earth, and our environment is ours, and we should all be responsible in doing our part to take care of it.”
A newly planted plant sits Thursday, April 20, 2023, in front of the LSU Student Union for Spring Greening Day on LSU's campus.
