North Central College, Sustainably

• On April 7, Indian Prairie Unit District 204’s environmental experts declared the future Eola Road site of Metea Valley High School, contaminated with diesel fuel and PCBs, to require remediation, but be safe (Daily Herald). Local attorney Shawn Collins expressed skepticism a few days before, though, about the site’s “overhead power lines and the high-pressure natural gas pipelines”.
• There was a public meeting on April 10 about the City of Naperville’s proposed aerial spraying of the Riverwoods Park area to control gypsy moths (Chicago Tribune).

Green Scene would like to collect your old sneakers so that they can recycle them to be used on sport surfaces in communities around the world! Simply drop off your used athletic shoes in White Activities Center from April 16th through 22nd (until Earth Day).

A few guidelines:

• Athletic shoes only (any brand)
• No shoes containing metal
• No cleats or dress shoes
• No wet or damp shows

Contact Joe Wilmarth Tyna (jptyna@noctrl.edu) or Matt Leonard (mrleonard@noctrl.edu) for more information.

• April 19, 9am-3pm: Wheaton Recycling Extravaganza (PDF, 44KB)
  • Parking Lot at Carlton Ave & Liberty Dr, Wheaton (Google Map)
  • North Central College Green Scene will be volunteering
• April 20, noon-4 pm, DuPage County Forest Preserve Earth Day Festival
  • Fullersburg Woods, Oak Brook (Google Map)
• April 22, 10:30am-1:30pm, Alternative Fuel Vehicle Expo
  • Wheaton College, Wheaton (Google Map)
• April 22, Nike ReUse-a-Shoe Collection begins
  • contact Glen Ellyn based organization, SCARCE, to drop shoes off, or
  • donate on campus with Green Scene
• April 26, 10am-4pm, @ Naper Settlement: Cool Ride - Clean Choice Car Show
  • sponsored by Naperville for Clean Energy and Conservation and Partners for Clean Choice
  • North Central College Green Scene members will be volunteering
• April 26, 8am-noon, Glen Ellyn Recycling Extravaganza
  • Parking Lot at Duane St & Lorraine St, Glen Ellyn (Google Map)
• April 26, 9am-1pm, Annual Earth Day Trail Cleanup, Illinois Prairie Path

The College and SGA are relaunching the Cardinal Community Bike Program this week so that you can get around campus more greenly.

You’ll find Cardinal RED bikes with NCC stickers at bike racks around campus and at Naper Place. Students, faculty and staff will be able to pick up a bicycle in one location, ride to another destination on campus, and drop it off at a bike rack.

Help things go smoothly when you use a RED bike:

• Don’t use any personal locks on the bikes. RED bikes work on an honor system; Campus Safety will cut off any personal locks.
• Don’t ever park RED bikes off campus (other than directly outside of Naper Place). If a non-NCC community member is riding a bike, please call campus safety.
• Do leave your RED bike outside, accessible to everyone. A fine will be assessed if a bike is found in residence hall rooms.
• If a bike requires maintenance, call campus safety at x5911 or walk the bike to the Benedetti-Wehrli Stadium (Campus Safety office) and it will be repaired and put back into circulation as soon as possible.

Be safe, too:

• Follow all the Bicycle Rules of the Road (PDF, 208kB)
• Always maintain a safe speed and wear a bike helmet
• Don’t wear headphones while riding
• Never bike at night without a light
• Do not ride bicycles under the influence of alcohol or drugs
• Wear proper apparel (shoes are a must and skirts/wide leg pants can get caught in bike parts).

So, grab a Cardinal RED bike the next time you need to go from one end of campus to the other, and help North Central go green!

The new Environmental Studies program is excited to be offering two new courses during the next academic year. Keep them in mind when you are signing up for 2008-2009 classes.

Modern Environmental Issues (ENV 300) will be taught by Professor Will Barnett in Spring 2009. It is the only required course for the Environmental Studies minor - the other 6 courses in the minor can be chosen from a variety of courses in the sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. ENV 300 is an interdisciplinary course that examines local, national, and international environmental problems, and evaluates potential solutions. Field trips and group projects will be important components of the course. ENV 300 fulfills the Leadership, Ethics, and Values (LEV) requirement.

American Environmental History (either ENV 248 or HST 248) will be taught by Professor Barnett in Fall 2008. It can be used to fulfill the core requirement for an environmental course from the humanities, and there is no prerequisite. ENV 248 examines U.S. history from an environmental perspective. Students will study events from initial contacts between European colonists and Native Americans all the way up to the atomic bomb and suburban sprawl. We will look at how different groups of Americans have adapted to and changed the landscape, and we will read authors like Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Aldo Leopold to examine changing American ideas about nature.

A variety of other classes being offered next year can also be counted toward this new minor. Contact Professor Martha Bohrer (mlbohrer@noctrl.edu) coordinator of Environmental Studies, or Professor Will Barnett (wcbarnett@noctrl.edu) with any questions.

The College’s Environmental Studies program invites faculty and staff and students to its green Faculty Forum on April 15 from 12-2pm in Goldspohn 20. Topics, panelists, and disciplines include:

• “Writing a Green History of Modern America” (Will Barnett, History)
• “Literature and Science: Shaping the Green Commons” (Martha Bohrer, English)
• “Green Chemistry Is Not Your Father’s Environmental Chemistry” (Paul Brandt, Chemistry)
• “Maya Green/Environmental Green: Shared Symbol, Varied Meanings” (Matt Krystal, Anthropology)
• “Environmental Enterprise: Working with Green Business” (Gerald Thalmann, Accounting)

Need to get rid of used batteries, old paint, or other hazardous wastes? Naperville Fire Station #4, just off of Route 59 between Diehl and N. Aurora Roads (Google Map), will accept many toxic materials.

Support student enterprise and sustainable commerce at the same time: buy NCC’s Best Conscious Bean Coffee, brought to you by the College’s chapter of Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE).

Farmers who follow fair trade practices grow Conscious Bean in San Lucas Toliman in the Highlands of Guatemala, and you can get your hands on these “Fine and Fair” beans online or on-campus in the Rolland Center Boilerhouse Café.

(Your author is drinking a cup of Conscious Bean as he writes.)

Our SIFE chapter hasn’t limited itself to coffee, either: get a hold of them to ask about their Fair Trade chocolate bars, woven table linens produced by Burkina Faso women widowed by AIDS, and sweat-free t-shirts.

• Naperville got its first LEED-certified building (PDF, 44KB), the Naperville Park District’s South Maintainence Facility, on March 17.
• On March 20, the Naperville Sun profiled the efforts of local businesses Ted’s Montana Grill and Naperville Running Company to be more green, including Naperville Running’s participation in the City of Naperville’s Renewable Energy Program.
• On March 25, the Naperville Sun reviewed cloth/disposable-hybrid gDiapers, interviewing local merchant Shannon Mitchell of Unique Bowtique.
• On March 31, the Naperville Sun interviewed native Kate Schrank, who launched Clean Choice Inc. and the Clean Choice Naperville Campaign, “a venture that seeks to educate people about air pollution and how the right vehicle choices can help improve air quality”.

Shy of biking or walking, railways are among the greenest ways to get around. Always be sure to consider whether Metra, with its conveniently-located station just northwest of campus, is an option for your trips around Chicagoland.

Metra’s weekday express trains will get you from here to Chicago’s Loop in as few as thirty-three minutes. Or, on the weekend, take as many Metra trips as you’d like for a flat $5 with Metra’s Weekend Pass.

Metra’s not just for going to the Loop, either; you can take Metra to Brookfield Zoo, to shopping in many suburban downtowns, or, by changing trains in the Loop, to Ravinia Park or the Chicago Botanic Garden.

You can also transfer, in Chicago’s Loop, to the ‘L’ and buses for getting all around the City of Chicago; the city’s hundreds of easy destinations include Wrigleyville, the Magnificent Mile, and dozens of beaches.