Earth Month: April Showers and Earth Day Flowers!

April marks the beginning of Earth Month, a Sustainability Council initiative focused on encouraging students and faculty to lead more sustainable lifestyles. The program kicked off with the 2023 National High School Climate Forum Youth Summit hosted by the Sustainability Council’s Events Subcommittee Alex Noviello ’23 and Andrew Noviello ’23. This event marked the start of Lawrenceville’s annual Earth Month programming. 

The Sustainability Council aspires to raise more awareness for environmental issues through these Earth Month events. “If we can take a few minutes of someone’s time to get them focused on the topic…then that’s a victory from our perspective,” Alex Noviello said. He views Earth Month as an opportunity to expand ongoing initiatives on campus such as recycling and zero-waste.

Student Council Sustainability Representative Alistair Lam ’23 is “optimistic” about the campus eventually reaching carbon neutrality. The School can become an “increasingly greener campus—not just through discussion and classes but also through action in everyday life,” he said. 

To reach this goal, the Sustainability Council has implemented a series of initiatives during April for Lawrentians to engage in “academic, intellectual, and fun” opportunities, according to Lam. On April 22, the annual Earth Day Fair will be hosted in the Crescent. Similar to last year’s fair, different booths will be set up educating community members on environmental topics such as sustainable agriculture, plantation methods, and plastic pollution. The aim is to “introduce more sustainability topics to students who [were] not previously interested,” explained Lam. The Sustainability Council also hopes to host a film event that integrates environmental elements with sports-related topics, whereby students can learn the importance of political discourse and climate change. 

The Sustainability Council also plans to collaborate with other clubs to potentially host sustainability-themed visual arts workshops and community service events. Aside from these activities, students should be more “mindful” in their day-to-day lives and “put what they learn into action,” Lam added. “April shouldn’t be Earth Month. Every month should be Earth Month, [and] every day should be Earth Day,” commented Lam, “That’s the ultimate goal.”

Director of Sustainability Stephen Laubach “look[s] forward” to Earth Month becoming a longstanding tradition at Lawrenceville. After the pandemic, planning sustainability events has been “difficult” according to Laubach, but expanding Earth Day to include more programs for Earth Month and organizing more events throughout the year will help raise more awareness.