Pratt's Environmental Week

Pratt’s Environmental Weeks

by Isil Aksgül & Tina Pastore [SES]

Co-chairs of Leaders of Environmental Advocacy at Pratt (LEAP)

Environmental organizations tabling at the Pratt Green Lawn

Photo: Tina Pastore

With the collaboration of LEAP, the GCPE, Envirolutions, Center for Sustainable Design Strategies and the Sustainability Coalition, Pratt offers a great opportunity for students to expand their knowledge on Water and Environment related issues by organizing two major series of events every year; Blue Week in the Fall and Green Week in the spring. This year we had the chance to attend and participate in both events.

This year for the first time, organizations were invited to set up tables on Pratt Institute’s main lawn in order to discuss their initiatives and network with students. The Water Fair has become a legacy event for Blue Week and we will continue to strive for better iterations every year. During the Water Fair, students were afforded the opportunity to meet people from New York City Department of Environmental Protection, who are working on various Green infrastructure typologies. In addition to the specific details, there were detailed models that showed how the system worked. We believe that one of the most important benefits of inviting professionals to aid in the learning process, is their ability to provide clear and concise information which is imperative for the practice.

While Blue Week and the Water Fair make for a casual learning environment, Green Week has a more constructed crash course event series, which is a brief and intensive course of instruction. In these crash courses, the subjects range from Biomimicry to Citizen Enforcement in Anti-Idling. Students also had the chance of proposing crash courses that they would like to see in the future which made this event even more exciting for the students.

Volunteers of the Beach Cleanup event in Far Rockaways, Blue Week 2017.

Photo: Eve Baron.

One of the most exciting achievements of Green Week 2018 was the handover of more than 700 signatures endorsing the banishment of plastic bottle commercialization on campus. The petition campaign was organized by the undergraduate student group Envirolutions. At the opening event, the group gave the petitions to Pratt’s new president Frances Bronet. They explained in their speech that they were motivated to create this campaign after Blue Week’s discussion panel event on plastic pollution in the oceans. The new president’s response was highly positive. She promised to discuss the issue with the board of trustees and said that she is very interested in making changes, especially towards more sustainable practices. However, in order for her to be able to carry on projects like this, she must see numbers. The practical aspects of it needs to make sense financially or to have a great effect on the Pratt Community.

In summary, it is noticeable that the Pratt Community, especially students, are starting to be more aware of sustainability issues thanks to Blue Week and Green Week events. Once aware and motivated, students may be more interested in becoming engaged and be a part of the change. That is something remarkable that unites us all and makes our community stronger. In a more and more individualist world that is a big achievement. Another interesting aspect of the events is that they seem to be creating a thematic cycle, where once the theme is debated and reflected amongst us, a plan of action comes to light. It is to be expected that this cycle can be cultivated in the upcoming environmental weeks.