This week on Chronversations: A conversation with SGA President, Jenna Davis, about Earth Week.
TRANSCRIPT:
0:07: Welcome back to the Chronicle Chronversations.
0:10: I’m your host, Aaron Guzman.
0:13: This week on Chronversations, I am joined by SGA president Jenna Davis.
0:18: On Friday, April 25th, the Student Government Association held their 3rd annual Earth Day Clean-Up, where students and faculty can volunteer to help clean up the streets from Ida B.
0:28: Wells to Roosevelt.
0:30: The goal of the Earth Day Clean-Up is to clean up our campus and participate in Earth Week, which has been put on this year, and just remind people that picking up trash on the sidewalk is just a act of what you can do to be more sustainable and help the planet.
0:47: It might seem insignificant, but it is significant.
0:50: This is our 3rd year doing it.
0:52: since freshman year, I’ve put on this event with my team, but it’s mainly me this year and obviously Columbia facilities.
1:00: It looks different every year.
1:01: We started with Earth Day clean up my freshman year, 3 years ago.
1:04: And then last year we had a Symposium on top of the Earth Day Clean-Up, and then this year we have Earth Week in collaboration with SOC in order to broaden it and have other organizations be a part of it.
1:16: I hope that this encourages people to be more conscious of what they’re throwing away and that it make to make sure that it gets into the correct bin, and also just to pick up trash on the ground if you see it.
1:29: Every small act like that is a big help.
1:32: It’s going to be all down Wabash from the goal is from Ida B Wells all the way to Roosevelt with the like smaller street up to like Michigan, but if we don’t have enough people, we would probably go from 11th Street to Ida B Wells, but the goal would be from Ida B Wells to Roosevelt.
1:49: We have people register and engage and we take note of like how many people are there, and then as for what we’re.
1:55: We partner with Independent recycling, which is the recycling program that we use at Columbia, and they collect everything and then after a few days, we get the total weight of stuff that we collected.
2:06: I don’t remember what it was last year, but my freshman year, so 3 years ago, it was like over 1600 pounds of stuff that we picked up off the ground, which is not great, but also really cool that we made that much of an impact.
2:20: And are there any other events being held at Columbia for Earth Week?
2:25: Yes, there are, but the beginning of this week, the Renegades Outdoor Collective did a beach cleanup on Sunday.
2:32: The Black Wolves basketball team did a swap shop, so kind of like a clothing swap but with like other items.
2:39: today, the seal, the Student Engagement and Leadership office held a succulents and sustainability thing, and then on the outside films is hosting an environmental impact of the film industry, which is a Zoom meeting all about how to make sets more sustainable, and then we’re ending the week off with our Earth Day Clean-Up.
2:58: I think it’s significant to our school because it’s something that our students are passionate about.
3:05: There are so many students on campus that are conscious of the materials that they’re using, especially within the School of Visual Arts, fine arts specifically with like the materials that we’re using and within.
3:16: The departments, it’s like built into, not the curriculum, but built into how we do things.
3:21: It’s just to like reuse things and be sustainable in that way.
3:26: So I think having an Earth Day clean up just like reignites that fire of being more conscious of the materials that we’re using, and also just to recycle.
3:36: That’s all for this week.
3:38: Make sure to stay up to date with campus and metro news at ColumbiaChronicle.com and sign up for our newsletter at ColumbiaChronicle.com/newsletter.
3:46: Don’t forget to check out our Three Cs podcast where we tell you about the 3 biggest things you need to know at Columbia for the week.
3:53: I’m Aaron Guzman.
3:54: Thanks for listening.
Copy edited by Patience Hurston
