Earth Awareness Exhibit A Big Success

On Monday, April 16, 2007, the Beautify Southern Illinois Student Alliance (BSISA) & the Saluki Volunteer Corps teamed up to hold an “Earth Awareness Exhibit for first graders. The Saluki Volunteer Corps obtained a small grant from the Illinois Campus Compact which paid for supplies for the event and lunches for the presenters and student-volunteers.

The event was well-attended, with just over 550 1st grade students attending from several southern Illinois grade schools:

DuQuoin
Parish School, Carbondale
Jefferson School, Marion
Longfellow School, Marion
DeSoto School
Elverado-Elkville School
Giant City School
Creal Springs School
Washington School, Marion

Presenters were from:

SIUC Plant & Service Operations- Recycling/Vermiculture Program

SIUC Family Housing

SIUC Touch of Nature Environmental Education Center

Beautify Southern Illinois Student Alliance

Shawnee National Forest

Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge

Cache River State Natural Area

Keep Carbondale Beautiful

Jackson County Soil Conservation District

The April 17th edition of the Daily Egyptian included a front-page photograph from the event. Additionally, WSIL-TV Channel 3 included a video segment from the event on their Monday night news program, including an interview with BSISA president Janine Gawel.

Photos of the Event

Karin Magera, Park Ranger from the Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge doing a show and tell related to endangered species. The children loved the presentation, as is shown by their attentiveness to Karin’s presentation.	Kate Hellgren from Touch of Nature did an outstanding presentation related to birds, explaining how various birds obtain their food.
Woodsie the Owl made a special guest-appearance at the Shawnee National Forest educational station.	Jamie Corr of SIUC University Family Housing allowed the students to help make a weaving out of discarded materials to show children that reusing can be even better than recycling in some cases.