Over forty students and staff from across Northland Pioneer College took to the streets, roads, and wide-open spaces in observance of Earth Day, April 22, on a mission to make a difference, no matter how large or small.
The event’s organizer, NPC Faculty in Political Science Dylan Stiegemeier, said, “The goal of the day was to complete an action that brought people together and connected them with the Earth. It was fun to get outside and do something productive.” Stiegemeier has organized several clean-up events and is the author of a children’s book, “Lou and the Animals,” that encourages sustainable action. The book focuses on Theodore Roosevelt’s philosophy of “Do what you can with what you have, where you are,” and follows the story of Lou, a young girl with a special gift of being able to speak to animals.
At NPC’s Show Low campus, two students and nine staff members took to cleaning up the streets surrounding the campus as well as the park and aquatic center areas across the street. In Snowflake/Taylor, fourteen students joined two instructors and hit the streets on Main Street. In Holbrook, seven students and staff worked in the area surrounding the campus, and in Winslow, seven people collected over five large bags of trash. In Kayenta, two students set out to clean the streets, and several even set out on their own and collected trash around their local neighborhoods and homes. Patricia Nichols, a student at NPC’s Holbrook campus, said, “I picked up trash with my hubby. It’s very interesting seeing what is being littered. Like one side of a boot, a toothbrush, and so many, many bottles. It was very rewarding.”
The clean-up project was incorporated into the coursework for Stiegemeier’s POS 110 class. For the class final project, students were given the option to choose between writing a standard research paper on an election cycle or doing a service-learning project that included volunteering three hours to assist with a project or organization.
In total, the clean-up effort collected over fifty large bags of trash. Stiegemeier said, “Thank you to everyone who made the day successful. It was really great to see so many NPC staff and students participating in Earth Day.”
