Earth Day celebration at NEIU

Early Tuesday morning on April 20 brought about a new, environmentally friendly atmosphere with the introduction of 20 new trees on campus, which included five different types of oaks, as well as buckeye, cypress, spicebush and pawpaw trees.

The group of about 20 students, faculty and staff were on campus at 8:30 a.m. getting their hands dirty to keep our campus green.

Kate Ekman, President of the Green Cycle Group (GCG), said that the trees are all native to the region. There are also other fruit-bearing trees on campus and the pawpaw is a new addition to the NEIU campus.

When discussing the pawpaw trees, Ekman said pawpaw is more nutritious than bananas, but we most likely do not see them in grocery stores because they have very fragile skin, do not ship well and need to be picked when they are ripe to get the most out of this native fruit.

"Native species are good because they're used to the area, and by having them it maintains bio-diversity," Ekman said. An example of this would be how Pawpaw happens to be the sole food source for the Zebra Swallowtail butterfly, which is found in the eastern half United States.

The pawpaw was also chosen because its habitat has been destroyed and is not usually seen in stores. People could grow their own pawpaw plants and don't even know about it, Ekman said.

Ekman said that, "We found a way to work with the school to make something big happen." She also said that this project was the first to ever be approved by the Green Fee Committee (GFC), which consists of five student representatives and 4 faculty/staff members. The GCG and GFC are two separate entities and encourage student involvement in keeping the NEIU community green. New people can get involved by contacting the GCG at greencyclegroup@gmail.com or visiting www.neiu.edu/~gcgroup for more information.