In recognition of Earth Day, CSUN continued the celebration by hosting the Earth Fair in front of Bayramian Hall. Over 50 vendors were at the fair to educate students on sustainability and green practices that will help preserve the earth.
Helen Cox, director for the Institute for Sustainability and geography professor, spoke to students about ways they can help CSUN to become a greener campus. The Institute for Sustainability is a campus-wide organization that works closely with the facilities and operations department to make the campus more green-friendly and interactive.
“ What we do is try to start initiatives to green the campus,” she said. “Some of those are education, making people aware of sustainability practices and some of them are actually projects on the campus where we make changes.” Cox used the example of designing a bicycle plan for the campus. “We did an analysis of how students are getting to campus (by commuting) and try find greener-friendly ways of getting campus,” said Cox.
Also at the fair was FLOWATER, which has fountains located in Sierra Hall, Juniper Hall, Redwood Hall, the Art and Design Center and the Education Center. The fountains are green-friendly where students can use their debit or credit cards for refills starting at 35 cents.
Zipcar, another vendor at the Earth Fair encouraged students to take advantage of the service provided here on campus. Students and faculty can reserve Zipcars on campus located at near the dorms. Currently. there are two Zipcars on campus a Honda Civic and Ford Focus that can be reserved by the hour or by the day for up to seven days.
David Henne Marketing Assistant of Zipcar said One of the initiatives of Zipcar is to go green because it is a car sharing service. “One Zipcar takes about 15 to 20 cars off the road because have 15 to 20 people using the same car each day,” he said
Fair-goers seeking a simpler means of transportation could purchase Solar Electric Scooters with a one hundred dollar discount.
“The goal is for people to be able to drive the scooter wherever they want and be able to leave the scooter in sun to charge without any problems,” said Micheal Donnell the owner of the company.
The scooters travel up to 20 miles; they are street safe and do not require any insurance. Which Donnell said is perfect for people who drive up to 10 miles to school; instead of taking a car they can use a scooter.
Faculty and students who were interested in a healthier lifestyle visited the Farm Fresh To You booth. The organic family-owned company that is runs online grows and produces fresh fruits and vegetables and delivers to home or business, weekly or monthly based on customers choices.
Other vendors at the fair were Toyota, Whole Foods Market, Aquarium of the Pacific on Wheels, Heal the Bay and CSUN SRC The fair also included yoga, crafts, rock climbing giveaways, live music, shaved ice and caramel popcorn.
