Mother Earth

Marshall University's Sustainability Department conducted a campus-wide celebration of Earth Day on Thursday. 

The daylong event included interactive and education sessions for students and staff.

"This year marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, which brings people around the world together to celebrate the planet," said sustainability manager, Margie Phillips, in a news release.

"This is the first year the Sustainability Department has existed, so we are quite pleased to partner with students to make this day an eye-opener for our Marshall University community," Phillips said.

Phillips said the Sustainability Department had help from several student organizations including the Parks and Recreational Organization for Students, the Student Environmental Action Coalition and the Marshall Environmental Student's Association.

Matt Weber, member of the Parks and Recreational Organization for Students, organized the event with the help of Phillips.

"I decided after a meeting in February that PROS needed to do something big for Earth Day," Weber said. "This is the first time something of this scale and magnitude was put on."

"It is important for Marshall to have something for Earth Day because it is an urban campus in the middle of Huntington," he said. "We lead by example, a lot of things that Marshall does are looked at by the community."

Weber said he attributes the success of the event to a lot of coordination with Phillips, the Sustainability Department and the other student groups involved.

"There were a lot of planning hours on all parts," he said.

Weber said the student groups had to plan for the many events in multiple locations throughout the day.

The day's schedule included nine educational sessions in the Memorial Student Center.

"We provided tons of education and awareness from all aspects," Weber said. "Companies were thrilled to be here and be able to get information out to the students."

There were interactive sessions such as rock climbing, kayak and canoe demonstrations and flower planting at the Marshall Recreation Center, according to the schedule.

The schedule listed the Memorial Student Center as the location for the bulb exchange, cell phone recycling, electronics recycling, plant sale, bake sale and a human-powered bike generator.

The bulb exchange took place from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., according to the schedule.

"Anyone could bring a regular incandescent bulb and exchange it for a CFL bulb," Phillips said.

She said State Electric of Huntington donated over 100 compact fluorescent light bulbs.

In the final tallies of the exchange, Phillips said they had swapped 99 light bulbs.

Phillips said the regular incandescent bulbs that were collected would be donated to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

Haley Thaxton can be contacted at thaxton21@marshall.edu.