Students walking into Paresky Commons were greeted by the Phillips Academy Sustainability Coalition (PASC)’s Earth Festival, featuring science posters, interactive games, and musical acts from various groups across campus.
Sylvia Su ’29 created a booth to educate attendees about the environmental impacts of rodenticides. She explained that her project aimed to promote safer pest control methods and raise awareness of ongoing environmental legislative action.
“My booth is around anticoagulant rodenticides, which is this thing that causes rats to have internal bleeding and to not be able to have their blood clot, which can cause them to die over a long period of time [as] they slowly become weaker and weaker. During this time, a lot of predators will choose to prey on them because they are weaker. So hawks and owls will eat them, and then the poison goes into their body, and then they die as a result of it. There’s a bill that the [All-School Meeting (ASM)] speaker [David O’Neill, president of Massachusetts Audubon Society] mentioned that is currently going through. I think it’s going through the House right now, and we’re trying to get that passed so that in Massachusetts, there’s a ban on this poison that can kill predators and even pets. Dogs and cats have died as a result of this poison,” said Su.
PASC Co-Coordinator Lisa de Boer ’26 said the event, originally planned for outdoors, was moved inside due to cold weather, which affected its atmosphere and accessibility.
“It made it harder to involve the entire campus. When the event is outside, especially near [Susie’s], everyone passes by, hears the music, and naturally joins. Indoors, it is more contained, so fewer people participate. It also limited the number of performances, especially dance acts, partly because [Andover Dance Festival] was on the same day,” said de Boer.
Despite these challenges, PASC aimed to bring together different groups across campus. Matt Robinson ’27, PASC Co-Coordinator, said this year’s festival focused on student performances.
“We focused on having more performers compared to last year. We also collaborated with the Wings Initiative to run a thrift event at the same time, which helped create a more complete experience… The goal is to engage people in a fun way without making it feel overly academic. Climate change can feel overwhelming, so we want to show that sustainable choices can still be enjoyable,” said Robinson.
Marty Wong ’28 reflected on his experience as a performer, noting that the festival helped foster engagement with climate-related issues through creating a sense of community.
“For me, the impact [performances] have is on awareness. It’s allowing people to engage more closely with the issue. While the performances may not have much to do necessarily with the effort, it allows us to gather as a group of people, as an Academy, to explore these ideas, and also through the little games and info booths that they’ve set up outside, learn a bit more about climate efforts,” said Wong.
Having enjoyed previous years’ Earth Fests, Nathan Ramani ’27 joined the PASC Council, helping set up performances at this year’s festival. Ramani described performing “Earth Song” by Michael Jackson with several others.
“It’s really important that everyone cares about the song and understands the significance of it. Singing at Earth Fest, ‘Earth Song’ is a great song to choose, which is why we went out of our way to [perform it],” said Ramani. “The last section of the song, the last two measures, everyone is singing one note to build a chord. That part of the song was really my favorite because it was the conclusion to which everything we built up was leading there.”
De Boer said that PASC hoped the event would inspire students to think more deeply about sustainability and appreciate the world and climate beyond Andover.
“The PASC does a lot of serious work, and Earth Fest is a chance to relax and enjoy while still thinking about the environment… Personally, I am from Beijing, where air pollution is a big issue. Every day here, I notice the clean air and feel grateful. Earth Fest is a reminder for students to appreciate that,” said de Boer.
