MARQUETTE – Although they had help from vendors, the April 16 Spring Community Climate Fair came about mostly due to the efforts of Northern Michigan University students.

The event, which took place at MooseWood Nature Center, featured vendors like the Northern Climate Network, the Climate Reality Project, the Citizens Climate Lobby and the Upper Peninsula Land Conservancy.

NMU Assistant Professor Jacquie Medina said the program in which the students were involved in conducting the fair is one of six programs in the course RE 362, Program Design and Leisure Services.

“These five students worked collaboratively throughout the semester to identify a mission and goals,” Medina said, “and then partner with an agency in order to implement a program regarding their mission, which was to advocate for awareness in climate change in our community.

“So, this particular event is a result of their work.”

Part of the program design process, she stressed, is for the students to be a part of many pieces.

One of those pieces is promotion, which had to be addressed before the event, she said.

“The program design class actually involves students from the beginning to learn what programming is,” Medina said, “and then they move through all the steps of programming through the semester.”

Those steps, she noted, include identifying goals and objectives, identifying a target market and completing a needs assessment, and then creating operational strategies – from getting a venue, looking at inclusion, risk management, set-up, wrap-up and a final evaluation, among other tasks.

The climate fair was the final product of all this work.

The classroom, through, was the genesis of the projects.

“The students came together in each group based on their general interest,” Medina said, “and this group expressed that they were interested in environmental awareness.”

What actions the students were actually going to do they didn’t know as they started the project, so that was part of their process, she said: communicating and working through that, identifying their goals individually and then as a group to create their product.

What their product turned out to be was a series of environment-related booths from various community organizations set up near Shiras Pond. There visitors could roam and take part in other recreational activities, with one group setting up a tightrope between two trees to try out their balancing skills.

The event also featured live music, a crafts table and healthy snacks.

One of the students involved in the RE 362 project was Eric Tenut.

“We were kind of separating into groups, and based on that, our goal was to create a program, so we focused on what we were passionate about – the environment and getting community together – and put together this little shindig,” Tenut said.

He said they talked with people from throughout the community, from other class groups involved in their own projects to student organizations.

“We got the word around as much as we could,” Tenut said.

As far as vendors were concerned, he said the students got a good turnout from students from an NMU sustainability class who are involved in issues like reducing waste through campus dining services. Another group is trying to get a beehive on campus to help pollinate the permaculture garden at the corner of Longyear Avenue and Summit Street.

NMU student Emily Sherek mentioned one particular vendor who had information about a project in which $3 solar panels in Africa can power a laptop computer.

In an email she wrote following the event, Sherek said the students received a lot of positive feedback about their event, with all the exhibitors saying they would join them again.

“My group and I were very pleased with how our event turned out overall,” Sherek said. “It wasn’t a huge turnout, but something we wanted to emphasize was to help people make connections, and we think we saw a lot of that.

“The people who did come seemed to stick around for quite a while.”

Not including the exhibitors, at least 56 people attended the climate fair, according to Sherek.

She said the students advertised a lot on campus, so there was a good turnout of college students.

“I think the main thing we would want to do differently is have more promotion in the general population,” Sherek said. “We also would like to reach out to more exhibitors in the future, and reach out earlier to try to grow the event.”

Suggestions, she said, included contacting the city of Marquette about the possibility of having more signage at the entrance of Presque Isle to better direct people to MooseWood, although the group liked the atmosphere at the nature center.

“We think it was a really good first run,” Sherek said.

Christie Bleck can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 250.