City College’s sustainability program, Regenerate @ SCC, alongside several other campus organizations, joined forces to plan and host an event in honor of earth day on Thursday, April 27.
One of the key organizers, Campus Sustainability Coordinator Sophie Wheeler, said that with this event, called Earth Day on the Green, organizers wanted to show that City College is committed to a sustainable future. “We are an important part of this community and I wanted to show this community that we are here; we do think sustainability is important; come out and support us and we’ll do the same.”
Earth Day on the Green was planned by Regenerate @ SCC, in conjunction with the Makerspace, the Global Studies Program, the Clubs and Events Board, and the Sustainability Club.
There were a variety of informational and interactive booths set up around the green in front of the Learning Resource Center from both campus entities and other outside organizations. The Sierra Club, Center for Land-Based Learning, Refill Madness, 350 Sacramento, and the Sacramento Environmental Justice Coalition all were excited to share information and resources with the campus community. Vegan restaurant Burger Patch passed out free vegan burgers for the first hour and Afro-Brazilian style band SambaDá filled the green with thumping, rapturous beats.
City College’s Sustainability Club hosted a clothing swap at the event, encouraging others to learn about the pitfalls of fast fashion while giving pieces of gently used clothing a second life. Behind the booth was a sprawl of garment racks and tarps laid out with a colorful array of pants, shirts, bags, belts and ties, as well as a mirror leaned against a sycamore tree for folks to see how they looked.
The clothing swap at Earth Day on the Green was the third the club has hosted this semester and gave students a place to exchange something they no longer wear for a new piece. The catch? There is none, the exchange is always totally free, and by this third and final swap they had so much inventory that attendees didn’t need to bring anything to participate; everyone was welcome to take whatever they liked.
“A lot of people come and ask us, do we have to pay for anything? And it’s like, no, the answer is always no. … We’re just trying to help people find a place where they can donate all their stuff, which is here, and then help them see that they can reuse it,” said Elina Murillo, vice president of the club.
President of the sustainability club, Eden Lange, said she’s been really happy with how students and others have interacted with the clothing swaps and how everyone has been receptive to learning about why fast fashion is bad. She even said she’s noticed a positive trend in how people think about reusing other’s items.
“It’s cool to see the shift that has happened from people being kind of grossed out by used clothing to being more excited about it,” Lange said. “We have dig-through bins over there and people are going crazy with it. That’s really cool to see.”
The Makerspace had a couple of tables and booths promoting the space and its possibilities. A printing press was putting out T-shirts and flags, but the solar-powered, oven-baked brownies stole the show.
Mark Webster, a faculty member of the Makerspace and a retired faculty member of the mathematics department, stood surrounded by an array of shiny metallic boxes of various geometries.
He showed off one he made in the Makerspace with some cardboard and tin foil. It looked like a metallic flower, with petals outstretched catching the sun’s rays. A kettle rested on a metal stand in the center. Webster said he uses it to heat up his tea in the afternoon when he’s at the Makerspace. Marveling at City College’s sunny campus, he said, “this campus has a lot of little spots that could cook people’s lunch, heat tea or make a cup of coffee.”
Webster loves that the Makerspace allows students and faculty to explore things like mathematics in a more palpable way. “I switched over to the Makerspace to begin coming up with hands-on ways to relate this theory of mathematics, this language for talking about the world, in ways that people can use in a daily way, appreciate it and make it more beautiful and useful. Solar cooking is one of the ways to tangibly use something abstract,” he said.
Webster keeps a few different solar cookers in his home, some homemade and some purchased and said they are particularly great for cooking in the summer. Likening one larger solar cooker to a slow cooker, a solar slow cooker if you will, he said he loves it because he can cook outdoors in a fossil-fuel-free way while not heating up in the inside of his house. He thinks it’s a shame that so many people in the summer heat are doomed to a cycle of heating up their homes while making a meal then cranking the air conditioning just to cool things back down.
“There is more energy coming from the sun every day than the world can use,” Webster said. “So to me it’s so sad that we go and dig up oil that’s been percolating for a million years, and we’re using it up in just a few years, when nature’s provided this abundance for us.”
Webster added that any of the Makers classes in the Makerspace can teach students the techniques to make solar cookers in addition to an array of online DIY’s.
At the Regenerate @ SCC booth, visitors had the chance to practice sorting their waste. Small laminated cards of various wastes, like pizza boxes, grocery bags or banana peels, challenged people to sort them into the proper receptacles: Recycling, Compost or Landfill. Players were timed and graded for accuracy and earned a piece of candy, but, more importantly, got a hands-on chance to learn which items go into which bins.
Teaching campus community members the 3-Bin waste system has been one of Wheeler’s top priorities this year, and she was excited to have the chance to present it to the community in a more fun, tangible way, as opposed to just pushing more text and rules at people.
Wheeler said she’s been very happy with the level of engagement at Earth Day on the Green and enjoyed seeing everyone interact with all the different organizations.
“I’m very, very happy with the turnout and very proud of all my help, all my volunteers, and all the club members,” she said.
