In honor of Earth Month, the Green Project (GP) UNI decided to shed a green light on our planet’s environment with an artistic spin. The group constructed an art showcase that represents the natural environment and how it is impacted by humankind.

The centerpiece includes a chain of plastic bags tied together to represent human action and awareness of these issues.

GP UNI said the chain will connect all of the pieces together to symbolize the importance of being aware of the impact people make on our planet’s well-being each and every day.

Lily Conrad, president of Green Project UNI, said that most people only pull out their green thumb once a year on Earth Day. She hopes these pieces will influence people to be more aware of environmental issues at all times.

“We wanted to create this piece to show the UNI community that our natural world can be cherished for more than just Earth Day,” Conrad said. “We use and exploit natural resources in our everyday lives. Since it is Earth Month, our main goal was to draw attention to the destruction that accompanies human action and lack of awareness.”

According to Conrad, they chose Rod Library to display the pieces because of the high traffic and the central location of the library on campus. Hundreds of students, staff and faculty pass through the library every day, so Conrad said they decided it would be a great location to catch people’s eyes.

The display itself is completely constructed by students, some of which were involved with GP UNI and some who wanted to contribute to the cause.

None of the students who created it were art majors, and all had zero experience with constructing anything like it before. Their goal was to create a piece of art that would speak to people about the environment and inspire environmentally-friendly actions for the future.

According to Morgan Streff, GP UNI secretary, all of the materials they used for the project were 100 percent recyclable, so when the display is ready to be torn down, it can be made into something else instead of piling up in a landfill.

“The showcase is a great representation of how art and nature can mix,” Streff said.

Another member of Green Project UNI, sophomore music education major, Taryn Kroymann, hopes that the showcase will inspire students to start to think more “green.”

“It’s really easy for us as students to forget what kind of an impact that we have on our world, and the showcase is a reminder of those things,” Kroymann said. “I’m hoping it reminds students to do simple things like recycle and reduce waste around campus, or introduce them to new concepts like light pollution or water runoff.”

Kroymann also created a piece that shows the effects human waste can have on a water supply and how costly it is to make polluted water drinkable again.

“It would just be easier, cheaper and overall healthier for the environment to just not throw out as much,” Kroyman said.

The display will be available to view from now until May 13.