Hunter Deiglmeier – Review staff writer. Green Week is an event that teaches Linfield students, staff and community members about pertinent environmental issues and promotes daily sustainability on campus.
With Transportation Day; Water Conservation Day; Energy Conservation Day; Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Day; and Eat Local Day, Green Week provides Linfield with information about the state of the environment, enhancing the message of its ultimate theme: sustainability.
“[Green Week is about] informing the campus about ways to live more sustainably and be more environmentally friendly,” junior David Kellner-Rhode, president of Greenfield, said.
Senior Duncan Reid, founder of Greenfield, said each day focused on a different area of sustainability.
“The purpose of this is to focus students’ attention to a specific area pertaining to sustainability in order to make the information more easily digestible,” he said.
Green Week was split into different categories that emphasize particular aspects of sustainability, enhancing students’ knowledge of specific environmental issues, as well as how individuals can help the environment.
“[There are] different ways in which we interact with the natural world, and it is easier to convey information when it is broken down into different categories,” Kellner-Rhode said.
With information tables outside of Walker Hall and the various events across campus during the afternoons and evenings, Green Week aims to increase environmental awareness, providing students with concrete ways to live more sustainably.
“More often than not, students are supportive of sustainability in general, but they are not aware of the things that actually make a difference,” Reid said.
Instead of giving students a broad overview of sustainable living, Green Week goes into detail about being environmentally consciousness.
“Green Week offers students a week to focus on [environmental] issues and to receive information that is provided by Greenfield members,” Reid said. “In this way, it makes it easier to access information.”
Musician Gabrielle Louise of “The Gabrielle Louise Show” spoke in the Pioneer Reading Room on Oct. 19 about her travels across the country in her van. Instead of gasoline, she used vegetable oil for fuel.
Kellner-Rhode said that this event was interesting, as it showed how easy it was for vegetable oil to replace diesel gasoline, giving students ideas of alternate forms of transportation.
Green Week discusses many topics relevant to environmental debate today, giving students at Linfield a more in-depth look at how to live “greener” in order to sustain the natural balance of the environment for generations to come.
To conclude Green Week, Reid and Kellner-Rhode will host a potluck dinner at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 23 at 826 SE Storey St. in order to promote eating locally and living sustainably.