By Samantha McCoy, Staff writer
The Johnson Center for Community Engagement finished off Earth Week by hosting the Silent Earth party at Trax this past Saturday.
The environmentally-friendly theme was combined with the Silent DJ Party that Trax started last year. It was paired with the phrase “the earth has music for those who listen” serving as the tagline for the event.
Eyana Walker, a junior public relations major and Trax’s marketing manager, said that Trax wanted to advocate for sustainability and awareness during the party.
“We tried to advocate by getting eco-friendly cups and organic food,” said Walker. “We had a live stream of the world through the space station on the television, and one of our biggest things was to decrease our power usage.”
“We compared our usage from this year to last, and we decreased our power usage significantly compared to last year’s earth party,” Walker continued, “That’s the biggest thing, the university tests each building on how much usage, its a big reason why we have the motion-sensored lights, to decrease power usage and be more environmentally friendly.”
The party ran similarly to the Silent DJ party introduced by Trax last year. There were three DJs operating on a separate line, and each student received a pair of headphones that allow them to switch between the three DJs.
“Our slogan was ‘the earth has music for those who listen,’” said Walker. “It works wonderfully with the silent party theme. The theme of the party was that you’re listening carefully to the three DJ stations, such as you cannot hear the earth say that we are losing water or animals, you have to pay attention to the smaller details.”
The party was one of many events to occur in celebration of Earth Week at Susquehanna University. Walker said that it was also a good theme to start off the spring and summer seasons and to remember to reuse and conserve for the environment’s sake.
“The hardest part was to have access to the eco-friendly items,” said Walker. “Now we know the brands we used, so if students ask about organic food and cups we can tell them and help them out.”
Walker said that Susquehanna has a good reputation for being environmentally-friendly, with recycling bins in each building and using sustainable objects, but that there is more work to be done.
“What we should do instead of giving everyone a bunch of t-shirts on their first day is give them a reusable water bottle,” Walker said. She adds that it will reduce plastic usage on campus and will accompany the many refillable water fountains on campus.
The importance of Earth Week is to push people to be environmentally conscious all the time, according to Walker.
“We can’t have a beautiful campus and not be eco-friendly,” said Walker “We are dedicated to creating an environmentally- friendly campus and we are [going to] do our part in the manner.”
In ‘The Lorax’, one of the biggest quotes is ‘unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it’s not’. We care enough, and we want to show it.”
Trax will be hosting the Spring Weekend party this Saturday, with the band 88mph returning to play on campus.