CSUN’s Institute for Sustainability Project coordinator Misha Kouzeh encouraged students to appreciate our planet and provided them with an abundance of information on how to conserve the planet at this year’s Earth Fair on Bayramian Lawn.

“Today is a special day, we’re celebrating Earth Day. I personally think every day should be Earth Day because we need to learn how to preserve our resources for future generations. For this annual Earth Fair, A.S. brought out a lot of different organizations and initiatives together to collaborate and educate our campus and community members about the importance of Earth Day. This shows we can work all together for a sustainable future, one change at a time” said Kouzeh.

Garden and Compost Assistant Tera Trujillo added to the conversation.

“We have become very disconnected from the earth itself, we have become so structured around buildings, phones, and computers, so being able to have one day where we can actually reconnect with the importance of the earth and this day provides the opportunity for us to connect with each other,” said Trujillo.

Lara Faamafi a CSUN student majoring in chemistry, who attended the event said

” Earth day is important because we need sustainability and I am glad CSUN is bringing awareness to other students. It is important to care for the planet because we live here…obviously. The plant takes care of us so we must reciprocate”

” It is important to celebrate earth day because it elevates our level of consciousness to the impact we have on our world. It also elevates the manner in which we can keep it going for years to come, ” said Rachelle Apolinar a CSUN student majoring in sociology.

Two particular displays showed students how they could make difference by replacing simple items with more eco-friendly substitutes.

Lindsey Watkins, the co-founder and chief operating officer of the eco-friendly underwear line “Planties”, was at the event to promote her business.

“Planties is a sustainable online underwear monthly subscription and for each panty sell we plant a tree in effect to fight against deforestation. These panties are made from a sustainable material such as soy, bamboo, and tensile fiber. The earth is important and we have to do everything we can to make sure we leave the earth a better place than when we found it,” said Watkins

Members of the One Less Straw campaign Michelle Allen and Christine Hattendorf educated students on the topic of plastic pollution.

” We want to decrease the amount of straws we use. We are trying to everyone to pledge to stop using plastic straws because they are not recyclable. They end up in landfills and oceans in the United Staes alone we use 500 million straws a day which is ridiculous. That is enough straws to wrap around the earth 2 1/2 times. We are trying to spread awareness to this issue. Earthday reminds people that we have been on the earth for a short amount of time and it reminds people we need to take care of it,” conversated both Allen and Hattendorf.

The event also brought awareness to cancer.

Love Your Melon is an apparel brand dedicated to giving back a hat to every child battling cancer in America.

Shei-Lina Bundalian, president of the CSUN Love Your Melon crew, explained, “We support children with Pediatric Cancer and we do this by selling apparel on Loveoyourmelon.com which is a non-profit organization. Earth Day is just as important as it promotes sustainability which is extremely important to the environment and the lively hood of our future”.

The event also featured a live jazz band and rows of hammocks.

Corrections: A previous version of this article misspelled Misha Kouzeh’s last name