The sun shone bright on a beautiful spring day and helped liven up students and faculty before their final weeks of classes.

From April 21 to April 25, SIU is celebrating Earth Day with many activities to highlight and promote green initiatives throughout the campus and region.

On Tuesday, Kris Schachel, the sustainability coordinator for SIU, helped lead the “Campus Consciousness Tour” to raise awareness for sustainability issues under the theme “Life is Better Outdoors.”

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She said this event was an eco-fair on the lawn outside the Student Center with activities to show students why they should love their environment by being outside.

L.L. Bean was a corporate sponsor and provided information about their products as well as a photo booth, Schachel said.

Schachel works with the sustainability council as a non-voting member by overseeing the Green Fund, developing programs on campus and working to build collaborations.

The Green Fund is an account paid into by students by the green fee, which is a maximum of $10 per semester, she said.

“Anyone who’s on campus, a student, faculty or staff member, that has an idea for an improvement pertaining to sustainability, as in infrastructure or energy conservation or research,” Shachel said. “They can put together a proposal for having it funded by the Green Fund.”

The council meets every spring and fall to review the proposals and decideswhich ones will receive funds.

Shachel said the university has more than 100 different projects to keep the campus environmentally friendly, one being the dental hygiene project.

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The Green Fund allows dental hygiene department to convert all its programs to digital format, such as keeping client records and X-ray procedures, she said. This cuts down the amount of paper waste it normally used.

A program in the works that will be funded by the Green Fund starting in the fall semester is an expanded compost facility for campus. This will enable all the fruit scraps from the dining halls to be composted instead of going into landfills, Schachel said.

Students on campus are also taking it upon themselves to help keep the campus eco-friendly, including Alex Anastassatos, a freshman from Collierville, Tenn. studying cinema.

“My family and I are very concerned with being environmentally friendly,” he said. “We go out with our church group to pick up trash in our area to recycle.”

He said one way he continues to be green while at school is by riding his bike or walking instead of driving to put less pollution into the air.

Anastassatos said he supports the Green Fund because it helps keep the campus healthy and full of life.

Kelsey O’Brien, a sophomore from Arlington Heights studying nursing, said she chose to be vegetarian as a way to be healthier, respect all living things and help with the planet’s sustainability.

“The USA uses more than 70 percent of its grain for feeding livestock,” O’Brien said. “Just by cutting meat back by 10 percent will be enough grain to feed 225 million people.”

Animals generate triple the amount of the waste humans do, and with the excessive number of livestock being raised for meat, it leaks into and can contaminate the water supply, she said.

However, O’Brien said she is glad the dining halls use food from SIU farms to help keep food local.

She also said that the smoke-free campus will be great to stop the amount of cigarette butts littered around the school.

“Cigarette butts are one of the most littered items in Amerca,” O’Brien said. “Despite the fact it is illegal to throw them on the ground, I see so many students still doing it.”

O’Brien said she is glad to help the world stay green and reduce hunger by having healthier and more abundant crops.

“Over the course of my life, I hope to continue to have a part in the reduced amount of fuel, water and waste associated with the meat industry,” she said.