Green students earn grants to spread the word
Story By: Bea Karnes
Source: KOAA
Two CSU-Pueblo students are being honored for their efforts to find practical ways to improve the environment. Jessica Viges and Karina Hoeppner are among 10 finalists in a nationwide collegiate environmental competition. They each will receive $500 grants.
Viges and Hoeppner helped charter the Students for Environmental Awareness (SEA) student organization last spring and currently serve as president and vice president.
Hoeppner and her SEA colleagues will create a Green Pages for the Pueblo community – listing businesses that make efforts to address environmental issues through lower energy consumption, recycling and other practices.
Viges will have her SEA peers conduct a campus survey to track waste production and energy consumption by individuals on campus and create a documentary film to raise awareness of the steps people can take to reduce their waste and energy resources.
The competition was sponsored by The People Speak and Americans for Informed Democracy. Other finalists attend Columbia, Texas A&M, Kansas State and Hofstra. The student with the most innovative and successful campaign, as determined by an on-line voting process in the spring, will receive an additional $500.
Viges is a senior majoring in biology while Hoeppner, a sophmore, is a music major.
