With Earth Day coming up on Thursday, April 22, the Conservation Crew plans to hold a more expansive celebration of sustainability initiatives by holding an entire week of education events. The Conservation Crew’s plan involves the corresponding activities of ASNMU, various environmental student groups hosting events and the Citizens Climate Lobby for a week of action.

Earth Week begins on Saturday, April 17, and events will take place each day through Friday, April 23. The Conservation Crew has provided an in-depth schedule of events on its website.

From Monday through Friday, there will be “Composting Awareness and Drop-Off” events from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Academic Mall. This is hosted by senior environmental science major Mikayla Scogg, who is collecting and weighing compostable food scraps for her capstone research project.

On Tuesday through Thursday, the Gamma Theta Upsilon Honor Society will hold Zoom presentations by experts on “Green Innovations in Heating and Cooling.” These talks will take from 6 to 7 p.m.

Other events include webinars such as the “Factory Farming and Environment” talk put on by the NMU Animal Club and Humane League, taking place on Monday; as well as the “Climate at Noon” talk by Northern Climate Network on Friday. More events and information can be explored by prospective attendees.

Additionally, in the past year, there has been growing support among students and faculty for carbon neutrality initiatives on campus with respect to the changing climate and sustainability. Associated Students of NMU recently passed an Earth Week-related initiative asking President Erickson to sign the Higher Education Carbon Price Endorsement Initiative. 

The initiative was introduced and passed by ASNMU on April 13 by off-campus representative John O’Bryan. It encourages NMU to take a stand on the growing movement towards carbon-neutral campuses.

“The Higher Education Carbon Price Endorsement Initiative has been advocated by groups such as Citizens’ Climate Lobby, which has a student chapter here at Northern. As a member of that organization, we believe that the moment is upon us to do all we can to influence the legislative process in favor of a fair, effective policy that benefits the most people, especially low income and disproportionately affected communities,” O’Bryan said.

With a combination of educational events, administrative and student action and community participation, this Earth Week aims to spread awareness as well as enact sustainable changes.