While walking past College of General Studies, students may notice a painting of a tree, made-up of about 150 finger and handprints with green paint, on the building’s front window.
Students made the mural as part of the annual Earth Day West Campus Block Party on Thursday.
“The purpose is to simulate a ‘tree of nature,’” CGS counselor Heidi Chase said. “Each tree of nature has its own thumb prints [rings], each one representing a year of its life.”
The tree mural was designed as part of the “Green Thumb” project, Chase said.
“The green tree was a great idea just because people could let the paint dry and have that symbolize saving the environment,” said CGS freshman Sabrina Salgia, the vice president of CGS Community Service Club. “People became curious when they saw someone with a green thumb, and they would ask questions creating talk about sustainability and going green.”
Sponsored by the CGS Community Service Club and CGS Student Government, the block party focused on engaging students in eco-friendly activities as part of Sustainability’s Earth Week.
More than 350 students and Boston residents visited the block party, which included a book swap, an energy-efficient light bulb display, tips for conserving water and chalk displays of the world’s natural wonders.
Although the East Campus Block Party was canceled, many Boston University groups and organizations showed up to commemorate Earth Week, inform students about sustainability and provide fun, eco-friendly activities.
“We invited all the [BU] schools and some outside contributors to deliver sustainable messages,” Chase said.
Salgia said she thought the block party was very successful in educating BU students on sustainable living in college.
“This event was in the middle of a populated area and flocks of people were stopping by to brush up on their knowledge of ‘going green’ and they most enjoyed the free stuff that came along with it,” Salgia said.
Some of the tables provided displays and literature to educate students on their daily impact on the environment.
“The average BU student consumes about 100 liters per day,” said College of Communication senior Jerusha Aman, who worked the Fitness and Recreation Center’s table on water saving tips. “That’s 5.25 jugs.”
Aman, displaying a jug of water on the table, asked students to guess how much water a person in a third world country uses per day. The answer, she said, is two-thirds of a jug.
“Some students were wowed and others were like, ‘yeah, we do consume a lot,’” Aman said. “[Before today] I didn’t know that we consumed this much.”
The Community Service Club also set up tables for the School of Hospitality, Metropolitan College, the Center for English Language and Orientation Programs, Student Health Services, International Programs and BU Bikes, among other groups. In its second year, the block party has grown with four additional tables, as well as increased donations to the raffle, Chase said.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
