Colgate’s annual “13 Days of Green” began on Tuesday, April 10 and will run until April 22. 13 Days of Green was founded to raise awareness about environmental issues and to urge students to make small changes to their personal habits.

“Colgate is already doing very well in terms of raising awareness about environmental issues,” event organizer junior Hejia Wang said. “But we need to take it to the next level, and help students realize there are changes they can make with their daily lifestyles that can really make a difference.”

The second annual Sustainability Awards, which took place on Tuesday night in the Ho Science Center Atrium, kicked off 13 Days of Green. The awards were given out to students and faculty members who were leaders and advocates of sustainability at Colgate.

One of the awards was given to the student organization Green Earth Gang, along with club founders sophomores Danielle Glassman and Madeleine Butts, for the club’s work with educating local elementary school students about sustainability.

“To not only finally have a successful club and to have the school recognize it, is an incredible feeling of accomplishment,” Glassman said about receiving the award. “I think the Green Sustainability Awards are a great reminder that it takes the entire school, not just one group or organization, working together to help with climate change. It is refreshing that there are so many passionate people out there about the environ-ment who are actively working to make changes in our school and our community.”

The remaining 13 Days of Green will include events from environmental clubs and organizations all across campus, including the Composting Club, the Clean Water Coalition, Green Gates and the Greek Sustainability Council.

“Each group on campus is focused on a different side of environmental protection or initiative, and so each group had a really different perspective or mission to offer to the community,” Wang said. “This is a great opportunity for the different groups to come together. We hope that by having many different types of events we can get more students to participate and be involved in green initiatives.”

Green Gates will be hosting a Recycling Fashion Show on Tuesday, April 17 to raise awareness about how so many of the things students throw away can actually be recycled or reused. Each team that participates will create and model an outfit made entirely of trash or recyclable materials.

“We just hope that students can have fun, and can take away fond memories of these events. We want to make going green exciting, and help students realize that they can live a green lifestyle in fun and easy ways,” organizer of the event junior Vincci Cheng said.

13 Days of Green will also include Brown Bags about environmental issues, “Scrape the Plate” and “Trayless Tuesdays” to promote food waste reduction at Frank Dining Hall.

In addition, screenings of different Planet Earth movies will be shown in the Visualization Lab on Thursdays and Saturdays.

“We want students to become more aware of the environments that they indirectly are polluting or harming every day, since it’s something they don’t see in their daily lives,” Cheng said.

13 Days of Green is being organized by a small committee and hosted by the student organization Green Gates.

Contact Cassidy Holohan at [email protected].