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Lobo Gardens is an initiative by Sustainability Studies Department at UNM to reach out to the community and provides a hands-on experience growing food sustainably, captured Wednesday April 18, 2018.  

Lobo Gardens is an initiative by Sustainability Studies Department at UNM to reach out to the community and provides a hands-on experience growing food sustainably, captured Wednesday April 18, 2018.  

Green Issue — UNM to celebrate Earth Day with expo

In celebration of Earth Day on April 22 the University of New Mexico Sustainability Program is hosting the 10th Annual Sustainability Expo on Thursday from 10:30 a.m until 2:30 p.m. at Cornell Mall outside of the Student Union Building.

Every year UNM’s Sustainability Studies Program hosts an expo to educate students, staff, faculty and the wider community about recycling, composting, conservation and other forms of sustainability, said Jessica Rowland, a professor of sustainability and one of the faculty organizers of the expo.

This year there will be over 85 tables. These will include cooking demonstrations, upcycling and recycling art projects, food, live music, yoga and educational tables, she said. Some of the tables will be run by UNM student groups and will display student projects. The expo is run by students in the Sustainability Studies Program.

“We are hoping to showcase a lot of the sustainable initiatives on campus and in our community,” Rowland said. “But really we want to build a deeper culture of sustainability on campus.”

At UNM Valencia Campus there will be an event to celebrate Earth Day, John Fleck, a professor of Water Resources said. He will be speaking to students, staff and faculty at this event, which is also on Thursday.

Lobo Gardens will be one of the student groups tabling at the Sustainability Expo at UNM’s Main Campus, said Christina Hoberg, the Lobo Gardens coordinator. Both the Lobo Gardens class and Lobo Gardens Club worked to create do-it-yourself gardening kits for the expo.

Lobo Gardens tables at the Sustainability Expo every year, she said, and the students decide what each year’s project should be. Hoberg said she hopes the do-it-yourself kits will encourage students to garden.

Rowland said Earth Day is a day people can focus on all the spectacular things that the Earth does for them — it reminds people that they must continue to work on lessening the negative impact they have on our planet.

“For some people in some cultures, every day is Earth Day, but unfortunately here, in the U.S., we tend to take the Earth for granted,” she said. “We often see ourselves as outside of nature instead of part of the larger ecosystem. This is probably why we act the way we do.”

There are many different tables at the expo, which means there will be something interesting for everyone there, Rowland said.

“Beyond hoping that people learn something new, we hope that they become inspired to take some sort of action, be that at home or at work,” Rowland said.

Reed Muelmeyer is a junior and one of the students organizing the expo. He said, growing up, he learned to appreciate the environment and spent time outdoors.

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Muelmeyer is now on the partnership committee for the expo. This committee connects and supports student groups that want to participate and table at the expo, he said.

“Earth Day is important, because it’s a time to remember our connection to nature, and to the planet,” Rowland said. “We often take it for granted and so it’s nice to have a specific day or week where we are celebrating all of the amazing things that the planet does for us.”

Megan Holmen is a freelance reporter for news and culture at the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com, culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @megan_holmen.

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