Wesleyan students celebrate Earth Day

From the effects of nuclear destruction, to melting polar caps, to the inner workings of an almost net-zero house, 16 informative booths lined the halls of the Howe Student Activity Atrium. Iowa Wesleyan University students participating in Joy Lapp’s Global Issues class had a chance to report their research on global issues.

“We’re a service learning class, and with COVID, we had to rethink how we could do our service learning,” associate professor of religion Joy Lapp said. “The students had to pick a global issue to research and an organization that is working on the same global issue. Then the students had to come up with an action for that global issue.

“They’re supposed to educate, advocate, and act,” she said.

Though the original plan for the fair was to follow global issues that related to Earth Day, some students decided to advocate for human rights.

“We have students focusing on rising sea levels and solar energy, but we also have a couple focusing on human trafficking and racial bias in social media, so it’s less about Earth Day as a whole and more encompassing,” Lapp said.

Each booth focused on a different issue, and some booths had their own demonstration. One of the demonstrations was a solar panel powering a light bulb, thanks to Cary Stalder.

“I wanted to focus on climate change and solar panels specifically,” Stalder said. “I think that solar panels are the next step for the future, because by 2050 we’ll run out of fossil fuels.

“It was encouraging and enlightening to learn more about solar panels,” he said. “In the past 10 years, they’ve gotten cheaper so more people can afford to install them now.”

Kumari Tamag focused on human trafficking in Nepal, and part of her “act” was to make dream catchers and crochet pieces and donate the proceeds to Maiti Nepal, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping victims of human trafficking in Nepal.

“It’s been such a good experience learning more about this,” she said. “It’s an important issue, too, and learning about Maiti Nepal and their founder was inspiring.”

The Earth Day and Human Rights fair seemed to spark some good conversations between students and faculty alike. One student was even inspired to further her advocacy into next year.

“I had heard about plastic pollution in the ocean, but I hadn’t really dug into the research until now,” Mady Vanlyn said. “The organization I focused on was Plastic Soup Foundation, and they have this really cool event called World Cleanup Day.

“Basically, what they do is get a whole bunch of people around the world to clean up and post pictures on this app, and at the end of the day, you can see this giant photo album of where cleanups took place,” she said. “If we do this next year, I’d love to encourage people to participate in it.”