David Saveanu
Reporter
Parkland held a fair to showcase Parkland and the community’s different actions towards sustainability and reducing their negative impact on the environment.
Multiple organizations, including Parkland’s sustainability team, Champaign-Urbana’s Mass-Transit District, Common Ground Food Co-op, the University of Illinois, MS4, and the Prairie Rivers Network came to showcase new sustainability projects.
Josh Clark, Parkland’s student life activities program manager, said that the idea to have the fair was sparked by a student.
“There was a student who presented [at the fair,] and about a month-and-a-half back she actually came to my office and asked if we had planned anything for Earth Day,” Clark said.
Parkland hadn’t yet made plans for Earth Day, but the student Clark mentioned, Claudia Salazar, came in with an idea.
“She wanted, as part of an honors project, to talk about plastic waste and how that’s really a big issue, especially as we move forward to using more and more plastic,” Clark said. “She wanted to do some type of presentation, so the sustainability fair came out of [Salazar] just walking into my office trying to see if we were doing anything. I kind of built the program around having presentations but also making it more of a fair and [had] activities to draw more interest of the student body.”
Parkland holds some kind of celebration for Earth Day each year. In past years, they’ve done service projects like the prairie grass cleanup.
This year, the goal was to share the community’s accomplishments in energy efficiency and sustainability.
Students and community members walked around as they learned about different organizations’ sustainability projects. The presenters and tables had different visuals and activities to educate the community on their projects.
“The goal is to show the students what is out there [and] what Parkland does institutionally,” Clark said
Parkland talked about its upcoming projects, and past ones that have kept the college’s energy costs down.
“Parkland does a lot to try and become more energy efficient. We’ve added two buildings…and the energy bill has stayed the same,” Clark said.
Solar panels have used to this effect, with arrays installed on Parkland’s W- and T-buildings, which house the college’s agricultural technologies and collision repair programs, respectively.
Thor Petersen, then the sustainability coordinator at Parkland, said in September 2016 that thanks to a grant from the Illinois Clean Energy Foundation that halved the cost to Parkland of installing the panels on the T-building, that building’s “system should pay for itself in about ten years.”
He also said “if electricity prices increase” in the near future, which he said “is a very likely scenario, the payback time will be even shorter.”
Common Ground Food Co-op talked about the Urbana Farmer’s market, the Co-op grocery store, and their work with local farms to make Champaign-Urbana a greener community.
CUMTD showcased their progress with hydrogen buses and their building projects around the community to establish a better bus infrastructure, like better stations, and designated roads.
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign talked about its own strive towards sustainability, including growing their own produce to be used in the student dining halls.
The UIUC representative, Micah Kenfield, spoke about the Institute of Sustainability, Energy, and Environment.
“We’re out here tabling, sharing information both about the community-wide, and campus-wide sustainability efforts that were doing, as well as offering opportunities for students that [plan to] transfer to the University of Illinois to find out about our minor in sustainability, as well as our other programs,” he said.
The Prairie Rivers Network talked about the importance of Illinois’ only scenic river and its upcoming celebration of it at Kickapoo State Park. MS4 talked about their efforts in decreasing the amount of waste in the sewers, along with a more efficient use for rainwater.
Parkland is working to make a bigger impact through Student Life by holding events like the sustainability fair or different presentations.
Along with this, Parkland is aiming for these presentations and events more accessible to the majority of students by making them not only available at the time of the event but also online.
“Student Life is trying a new thing—we’re going to call them Coby Talks, like Coby the Cobra, where we film different presentations and events of different speakers,” Clark said.
This would make events like the sustainability fair accessible at any time by anyone.
“They can engage in some of the activities that Student Life does, beyond being here at the very specific time,” Clark said.
To find Coby Talks in the future on the Parkland YouTube page, visit the Parkland YouTube by visiting youtube.com and searching “Parkland College.”