Chris Banyas
Life Editor
If you find gardening, environmental awareness and living and promoting a green lifestyle interesting and are looking for a way to pursue these interests, look no further.
The Idaho State University Green Up Club formed several years ago around these very concepts.
“We’re trying to connect a student body which is, at just about any school, fairly disconnected from its environment because of the busyness of everyone’s life,” said Ehren Moler, vice president of the Green Up Club. “Trying to link that reality with the very real possibility of involving yourself in meaningful environmental sustainability initiatives around campus and also the greater community.”
Moler joined the club last year prior to the Portneuf Valley Environmental Fair that is held annually on the Saturday before Earth Day.
The fair offers the club a chance to spread its message and is one of the main events it participates in each year.
“We developed some garden plants, some tomato plants and I think peas, some geraniums maybe and other ornamentals and handed them out to people,” said Moler. “We primarily have been interested in providing people with options for living more sustainably at home, consuming less energy, wasting less, reusing more, that sort of thing.”
The club also participates in service projects in the community by doing things like cleaning graffiti from the basalt rocks around Ross Park.
It also played a large part in acquiring many recycling bins that can now be found all around campus.
Originally from the Detroit area, Moler’s awareness of the environment developed in large part due to his surroundings at that time.
“Growing up in a more metropolitan atmosphere, you see so much more waste. It’s so much more obvious,” said Moler. “There’s so much less connection with your environment. You really see the full force of this nature-deficit disorder sort of thing.”
The Green Up Club is in the process of teaming up with the Outdoor Education Program to take advantage of service opportunities and better connect with the community and campus.
Recently the number of club members has declined, so they are looking for people to fill the ranks.
According to Moler, being active in the environment and community is not the only reason people might be interested.
“No one’s going to care about that unless they are having fun,” said Moler. “Anything that you try to do civic service-wise has to also be fun and connect people with other like-minded people.”
For more information about the Green Up Club, contact ude.usinull@1puneerg.
