April 22 marked the middle of a week filled with Earth-themed events organized by a variety of groups around campus to honor Earth Day. Events ranged from glass recycling to native plant restoration to shower competitions, and there were numerous ways for students to get involved and honor the planet.

An event hosted by the Outhouse (Whitman’s Environmental Interest House) grabbed many students’ attention with their “No Shower Challenge.”

Aidan Tribolet, a sophomore environmental politics major and resident of the Outhouse, explained the ideas behind the controversial challenge.

“The idea for the No Shower Challenge was a political intervention that was sort of ironic and played into standard and normative narratives of green liberal environmentalism,” Tribolet said. 

Tribolet further explained the different imagery that went into the challenge’s poster. The design featured crops like alfalfa, which are very water intensive and are grown all around the Walla Walla Valley. 

“It’s all dry land agriculture, which means it requires irrigation. Alfalfa’s a really intensive crop, and that’s used to feed like cattle and pigs, essentially, which played a part in this,” Tribolet said. “But the main idea behind the poster and like the challenge is not really about saving water or purifying the earth, but maybe it can be a mode of … resisting these liberal narratives of purifying the earth and purifying the body, and you know, not showering is pretty obviously getting dirty and not being pure,” Tribolet said.

Beyond the No Shower Challenge, there were many other groups on campus gearing up for Earth Day celebrations.

The Climate Justice Coalition (CJC) has also been putting together events for Earth Week that focus on native plants on campus. Anna Shimkus, president of the CJC, shared more.

“I’m looking forward to a lot of collaborative events regarding sustainability — specifically the CJC’s collaboration with the Native Plants Restoration Coalition to do a “Bioblitz,” which is essentially using a plant identification app (iNaturalist) to identify plant species at the Native plants restoration site near Reid,” Shimkus said.

Shimkus explained that the app and event would help to educate the community and get people engaged in native plant restoration efforts. This effort helps raise engagement in understanding native and invasive plants in the area, raising awareness.

“I would encourage people to not just think of sustainability as a stand alone thing relating just to energy and recycling, but also to think about how the way we treat our environment, and the people of that environment, connects to larger scale social issues,” Shimkus said. “I think if we lose sight of the people connected to a certain place, we also forget how we too are connected to the land we inhabit — whether we’re conscious of it or not.”

Earth Day also provided an opportunity for clubs to collaborate on common initiatives. Sophomore Valentina Garcia-Charles, Student Sustainability Coordinator for Bon Appétit, part of ASWC, and student leader in Whitman’s Students for Justice in Palestine appreciated the opportunity for collaborations that understood sustainability as an intersectional issue. The National Day of Action on April 17 gave organizations a forum for this collaboration. 

“I am looking forward to seeing more cross-collaboration with clubs on campus. Recently for the National Day of Action, multiple clubs on campus (DISCO, CJC, WSJP) came together to chalk up awareness about many different causes. Club collaboration not only reaches large audiences but it allows for a new community to be built, furthering the message that we are stronger together, allowing for sustainability and longevity,” Garcia-Charles said. 

Garcia-Charles also highlighted some more of the collaborations between the Outhouse and Bon Appétit, such as glass recycling and Eco-Reps distributing educational materials on campus. 

“I highly encourage students to stay active in the sustainability initiatives the college is pushing for, especially since the new campus sustainability plan has been reviewed by the President’s Sustainability Advisory Committee,” Garcia-Charles said. “Student voices matter, especially because we all come from different backgrounds and have different understandings of sustainability.” 

Using this week as a springboard for sustainability on campus, these various groups aim to encourage students to examine all aspects of sustainability, pushing for on and off campus initiatives.