A first-year event yesterday brought students together with campus environmental groups to teach them how they could become more “green”.

“Greening the Crimson and Blue” was put on by the Center for Sustainability and featured about 20 different campus organizations and departments with an emphasis on environmental sustainability.

Booths for the groups were set up in front of the Ambler Student Recreation Fitness Center at the KU Student Rain Garden from 2 to 4 p.m.

Jeff Severin, director of the Center for Sustainability, said he was pleased with both the number of organizations and students that turned out for this new Hawk Week event.

“What I thought was great was that the students who did come out were spending a good amount of time at all the booths, really learning what all is going on,” Severin said.

At the booth for the KU Energy Council, students had the opportunity to ride a bicycle that was connected to a generator and could power light bulbs. The device can be used to power appliances in real-time or charge batteries for later use.

At another booth, Emily Parsons, Manhattan freshmen, said she was surprised to learn that the Department of Student Housing had begun using biodegradable plates and utensils in some of the dorms.

Charles Sprouse, Tecumseh graduate student and an adviser for the group Ecohawks, was at the event telling students about some of the group’s recent activities. One of those programs brings students with engineering and environmental studies backgrounds together to study hybrid-series automobiles.

Sprouse said the group had already retrofitted a 1974 Volkswagon Super Beetle with a hybrid engine, which now gets more than 50 miles per gallon.

“We are trying to teach students the cutting-edge technology that the automotive companies are now looking for,” Sprouse said.

Steve Schulte, energy account manager for Chevron Energy Solutions, spent the afternoon at the company’s booth explaining to students how it is able to help the University reduce its utility costs and its carbon footprint at the same time.

Schulte said the company’s partnership with the University has reduced energy costs by more than $6 million in the last 5 years. He said the environmental impact equivalency of the reduction in carbon emissions on campus would be the same as removing more than 2,500 cars from the road every year.

Schulte said the company was able to accomplish this through improved lighting, water restriction devices and automated controls, among other things.

Kansas state senator Marci Francisco was also at the event and said she thought everything went well, but that she thought the most important thing to remember was all the work that was done the other 364 days a year.

“What is really impressive is just all the work that these groups do,” Francisco said.

— Edited by Jonathan Hermes