Lander University will observe Earth Week in a big way.
On Monday, April 18, faculty and students will work at cleaning up the stream that rises behind Centennial Hall and flows past Brookside and Thomason dorms.
Tuesday, April 19 is Dirty Sock Day, a contest to promote emissions awareness. Clean, white socks will be passed out to participants, who will put the socks over the tailpipes of their cars, which they will start and allow to run for 30 seconds. The dirtiest sock wins a gift card for an oil change. The cleanest sock wins an oil change and an Armor All gift basket.
The public is invited to participate in Shred Day on Wednesday, April 20, between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Area residents can watch their documents being shredded at the Chandler PEES Center, off Willson Street. They will also be able to dispose of unwanted clothes, shoes, glass, plastics, paper, electronics, ink cartridges and other recyclables, thanks to a truck that will be provided by the Greenwood County Recycling Center.
On Thursday, April 21, Lander faculty and students will focus their efforts on cleaning up both campus and the nearby Grace Trail.
To mark Earth Week, approximately 800 students from Woodfields and Oakland Elementary Schools, Brewer Middle School and East Side Christian School, will decorate paper bags, donated by the two local Bi-Lo supermarkets, with Earth Week motifs. The bags will then be returned to the stores, and shoppers can ask that their groceries be put in the new-look bags on Friday, April 22, which is Earth Day.
All week, recycling bins will be available for public use in the Moran Assembly Plaza, between the Josephine B. Abney Cultural Center and the Larry A. Jackson Library. At 5 p.m. Friday, the bins will be delivered to the county recycling center for processing.
All of the events are being sponsored by the Lander chapter of the Environmental Science Student Organization (ESSO). The group has sponsored similar events in the past, but associate professor of environmental geology Daniel Pardieck, who serves as faculty adviser to ESSO, said, "this is by far the most that we've done for Earth Week."
Victoria Parsells, an environmental science major from Greenwood and a key member of ESSO, said that she and the others in the group expect to "have a lot of fun while trying to make a difference."