West Liberty University will celebrate its first Annual WLU Environmental Education Day from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m., Wednesday, April 24 with a special display in the Alumni Lounge, College Union.
Sponsored by Riesbeck Food Markets and the WLU Green Initiative Committee, the event will encourage students, staff and the public to live sustainably.
Participants include Children’s Museum, Farm-to-Fork Club, Green Wheeling Initiative, Ohio County Master Gardeners, Ohio County WVU Extension Office, Schrader Environmental Education Center, Sunset Recycling, WLU Biology Club, WLU Sustainable Living, West Virginia Masters Naturalist program, West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and West Virginia Department of Natural Resources.
“This is a great way for our students to learn more about sustainable living and to promote environmental education regardless of their discipline,” said Dr. Vishakha Maskey, who developed and is currently teaching the sustainable living seminar, a class that has met all semester long. She is excited to display some of the ideas discussed in her class, Lexicon of Sustainability Art show, and creative projects of her students. Maskey believes that sustainable environmental choices are economically feasible and socially equitable.
Maskey invited the Wheeling Area Training Center for the Handicapped (WATCH) earlier this year to WLU, is also a part of the Green Initiative Committee, which is part of the WLU Faculty Senate. This committee is facilitating a campus-wide recycling program in conjunction with WATCH.
Other members of the committee include WLU employees: John Bonassi, College of Business consultant and adjunct lecturer; Lihua Chen, assistant professor of management; Darrin Cox, assistant professor of history; Melissa Hudson, instructor of health education; Aaron Massey, instructor of geography; Travis Miller, assistant professor science; Anna Stephen-Robinson, music theory and ear training instructor; David Thomas, professor of English; Theunis Van Aardt, assistant professor of chemistry; and Tracy Zang, assistant professor of dental hygiene.
Environmental Education Day hopes to bring together sustainability initiatives from different perspective, and will end with a 7 p.m. showing of the 2012 film, “Promised Land,” directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Matt Damon, John Krasinski, Frances McDormand and Hal Holbrook, in the Alumni Lounge.
For more information, please contact Thomas at 304-336-8199, chairman of the Green Initiative Committee.