Global Climate Change Week: Campus events spark awareness

The plan Tabitha Schade devised with her Environmental Studies professor Jason Scullion was pretty simple: Bring a global event to campus to increase awareness of climate change.

But even Schade, an Environmental Studies major and conservation activist, could not have predicted the impact the week-long series of events would have on the McDaniel community. From street fair to gardening, electric cars to Turn It Off Thursday, Schade engaged students, faculty and staff alike.

“It’s important for everyone to realize that climate change is real. It’s happening. It’s affecting us,” Schade says, explaining that a group of McDaniel faculty met earlier in the semester to find ways to be part of the global awareness week, and she and professor Scullion put the idea of creating Climate Change Week on the Hill in motion.

Schade called on every student organization she could think of to participate in some way. Green Life, the campus environmental club, served coffee and tea in reusable glass mugs. Student bands played. Residence Life sponsored a table full of extra-large laminated light bulb cut-outs to decorate and then hang on electric switches to remind everyone to turn it off. Ars Nova, the Art club, asked passersby to draw what climate change means to them.

Professors Christianna Leahy and Jonathan Slade brought their electric cars. There were swing dancers, ukulele players and live music.

“When anyone is engaging in things they like — music, swing dancing, coffee and tea in environmentally friendly cups — it creates awareness of the issues better than just a talk,” Schade says.

Lights were off all week in the dining hall. About 50 students shared thoughts at “Let’s Talk About Climate Change” on Monday night. A dozen or so trekked out to the garden to weed and put it to rest for the winter. Offices, classrooms and dorm rooms went dim on Turn It Off Thursday.

As campus emptied on Friday for Fall Break, Schade hoped everyone took with them new understanding about climate change.

And that indeed seemed to be the case.

“Everyone should care about it because it affects all of us,” says Hannah Krauss, a junior English major from Manchester, Md., carefully decorating her light-bulb cut-out.

“We need to take care of the land we live on,” says Kayla Malone, a sophomore Computer Science major and Resident Assistant from Baltimore.

Josh Bussiere, a senior Mathematics major and member of Green Life, shared the message with everyone stopping by for coffee or tea.

“Climate change — it’s happening and a lot of people care about it. Each one of us can make a difference.”

Gardening crew.