On Monday, February 25th, we hosted an Earth Week Brainstorm workshop.  The goal of this event was to gather people from different organizations in order to learn what fresh minds could contribute to our cause.  We hosted not only members from the American Marketing  Association(AMA) and Creative Marketing Unlimited (CMU), but members from S.A.G.E., Water Council, EPO, Safety Org, PEACE, CEO, and ResLife.  The event was a spectacular success with 46 people coming to share their ideas!

The evening began with CMU board members greeting participants in the workshop.  Qdoba came, and kindly served free chips and queso to all who came.  Wes Enterline then delivered an  excellent presentation on the history of Earth Week efforts on campus, which also served to help give people an idea of the kind of events we were looking for.

Finally, the creative portion of the workshop began.  Groups were formed with members from each organization present being teamed with CMU board members familiar with the Earth Initiative.  The groups were given a prompt to spur creativity, and everybody did a fantastic job coming up with new and creative ideas. Tons of new event ideas were created that can engage students in Earth Week activities and show them how to become more sustainable.

In addition to creating ideas for events, the event also served to bring
together students from various campus orgs and get them motivated to
live more sustainable lives. It is certainly exciting to think about all of  the organizations that attended  and how many potential members of those organizations can be reached through  the cooperation and outreach  that began at Monday’s workshop!

Dylan Waldhuetter from water council said “Not only would I like to see the Water Council get more involved on campus but a large part of our campaign is focused on increased sustainability efforts on campus.”

After the event planning commenced, participants in the workshop volunteered to be filmed for short videos.  Many talked about things that they do to be sustainable, while others talked about all the things they have seen CMU accomplish with the UW-Whitewater Earth Initiative around campus.  Keep an eye out in the coming days for another great  Sustainability video from that the clips that were collected in this workshop!

A special thanks to all attendees, we truly accomplished something for the greater good of our campus by coming together!

Until next time, thank you for joining the Conservation Conversation!

Welcome to the Conservation Conversation,

On Saturday, February 9, the UW–Whitewater men’s basketball team hosted UW–Superior and took home an 84 to 53 win. During the warm-up period, we worked hard to promote the UW-Whitewater Earth Initiative by performing some gorilla marketing tactics to increase awareness about sustainability efforts occurring across the campus.

The main draw was our water bottle give-away. Patrons attending the game could earn a reusable water bottle made of recycled materials by performing any of the following: liking the UW- Whitewater sustainability page on Facebook, Following UW – Whitewater sustainability on Twitter, or simply being part of a recycling video. Most participants opted for the “Likes” and “Follows,” but a few individuals aided in the creation of video clips.

Most of the video clips involved giving a short snippet giving the person’s name along with what they do to promote sustainability. One clip had people stating they recycle on a regular basis. Another turned off the lights every time they left their dorm room. We also had two guys state they recycled large amounts of aluminum cans.

The UW-Whitewater Cheerleaders even volunteered to be in our video! The cheerleaders remain sustainable by reusing water bottles at cheer practice. Seeing as there was a volleyball tournament occurring at the Williams Center concurrent with the basketball game, we decided to get volleyball teams involved with the video. Unfortunately, the initial team asked turned the video down.

Nonetheless, volleyball teams will be present again in the future allowing us future opportunities for additional videos. The UW-Whitewater dance team also expressed interest in filming a clip which may be done this coming Saturday, February 16th when the Warhawks battle UW–Oshkosh to extend their 5-game winning streak. We look forward to seeing everyone at the game, remember to stop at our booth for a water bottle.

GO WARHAWKS!