Earth Week Festivities Offer Good, Clean Fun

This weekend marks the beginning of Earth Week, with Earth Day falling on Monday, and Valleywide youth-oriented observances beginning Saturday. But for some kids in the Valley, Earth Day is every day.

Loana Martin, a high school junior from Sun Valley, doesn’t plan to waste words when she addresses the Earth Day event at the Sylmar campus of Mission College. While sharing the podium with U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, Martin plans to tell younger listeners: “Hey, if you don’t get involved in (your environment), it won’t be here in 10 or 15 years.”

President of the junior class at Francis Polytechnic High School, Martin is a veteran member of the student delegations who earlier this year successfully lobbied Los Angeles’ Board of Public Works and City Council to close the Lopez Canyon landfill in her neighborhood.

“Every day you have to look deep into [environmental] things--what chemicals you’re using, and where you can do something more than just recycle--and do it,” Martin said during a recent interview. Her brand of grass-roots, year-round activism is typical of many people--young, old and in between--in this area.

“Environmentalism is not just [observed] on Earth Day and on big nationwide events. It’s now every day and happening at the neighborhood level,” said Lillian Kawasaki, general manager of the Los Angeles’ Environmental Affairs Department, which now publishes a multi-page, citywide listing of civic and campus environmental events every month.

As far as Kawasaki is concerned, this sudden interest in all things environmental is evidence of a new consciousness among kids and adults “who might not consider themselves environmentalists, but who might have taken part in things like cleanups and community gardens around their schools and neighborhoods.”

Environmentalism has even found a niche in the world of computer games--perhaps an unlikely venue for such ideas. But the most challenging computer game on the market this year is the environmentally themed “SimIsle” from Maxis, the publisher of the perennial hit “Sim City.”

Players, which generally means kids, try to defend an island nation from threats to its environmental health and economic prosperity. This columnist’s own kid, a lad who bested “Myst” in a day while others tormented themselves for weeks, admits that the reviewers are right: The problems in “SimIsle” are the toughest to solve of any game he’s seen.

Ironically, a game is a big hit with kids when it requires prolonged play to solve problems. Come to think of it, that’s pretty good training for budding environmentalists.

DETAILS

* FYI: “An Environmental Affair” is a monthly calendar of public and campus events and grant opportunities published by the Los Angeles Environmental Affairs Department. The current edition includes Earth Week events. For a free copy, call (800) 439-4666, or log on to www.ci.la.us/dept/ead/index html.

* FOR KIDS: “RecyCool Club,” a project of the California Department of Conservation, is offered to elementary schools. Membership materials include a free Disney video starring “Recycle Rex,” the department’s spokes-dinosaur. For information, call (800) RECYCLE.

* CLEANING UP: Valley Earth Day Community Cleanups will be Saturday from 8:30-11:30 a.m. For information, call Field Headquarters of L.A. City Councilman Richard Alarcon (818) 756-9115.

* GETTING ORGANIZED: The Conference on Environmental Justice will be at Mission College Campus Center, 13356 Eldridge Ave., Sylmar, on Monday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Call (213) 847-7777.

* ON CAMPUS: “Earthfair,” Wednesday from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Cal State Northridge Student Union Court of Community, will have displays and information from environmental organizations, public agencies and campus groups. Events include a noon jazz concert and the annual Can Sculpture Contest. Call (818) 885-2477.