BLOOMSBURG, Pa. -- Earth Day is this Sunday, and to celebrate, students at Bloomsburg University organized an event that got students thinking and talking about ways to be sustainable.
One thing many students agreed on was how important it is to recycle on a college campus.
Games like Jenga and corn hole already draw college students in, so to celebrate Earth Day, the only catch Wednesday was students at Bloomsburg University had to read a fact or answer a question about the environment in order to play the game.
"I think it's awesome. It draws attention so that students want to come so it makes it interesting so we can learn new things," Bloomsburg freshman Tatyana Golub said.
Students in Bloomsburg's Event Planning class have been working all semester, organizing this Earth Day celebration. They teamed with BU's Green Campus Initiative and other environmental groups on campus for the fifth year in a row.
"It goes into one place unless you take those five minutes and separate those plastics and those cans and your cardboard and colored paper, so I think it's important especially here on campus because students don't really know," said Senior Carol-An Ramirez.
Ramirez was one of the 30 students in the Event Planning class who planned the Earth Day event.
To encourage students to stop and participate at each booth rather than just walk by, he or she could earn a credit for each of the 21 booths on campus. At the end, if a student stopped at all 21 booths, he or she got 21 items of free food and snacks.
"College students go right for the free food. We know that, so that was just the thought we had to get people engaged and draw them into more than just what they usually know and go for," Ramirez said.
Lines of plastic water bottles hung from trees around campus to remind students that something as small as switching over to a refillable water bottle could go a long way.
"They have fountains around campus. They have filtered fountains around campus," said Bloomsburg Freshman Kendall Napuda.
"I just harass my students about plastic bottle use, where they're embarrassed to bring a plastic bottle into the classroom. I think I have them all switched over now," Bloomsburg Professor Kara Shultz said.
Shultz teaches the Event Planning class at the university and helps the students hold the Earth Day event every year.
Earth Day is this Sunday, April 22.