This semester for the first time Parkland will be offering a non-credit course through Live & Learn on biofuels. There is a team of outstanding Parkland instructors who will take you through the entire process of biodiesel production and use - from the raw plant material to the engine. The course will include a field trip.

You can find more information about this course online at http://www.parkland.edu/schedule/landl/leisure_F08.pdf (Biodiesel and Other Alternative Fuels). You can also contact Parkland College to register or check online.

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Have you ever noticed various kinds of trash around Parkland College and wished someone would pick it up? Can you imagine yourself spending an hour involved in this worthy endeavor? One of the activities we have planned this year to promote our general theme of garbage/recycling/composting is the Parkland College Clean Up Project.

We’ll be cleaning up on the following dates this semester:

Thursday, September 25, 3 – 4 pm (outside) (Quite nicely, this is two days before everyone in the Champaign County Heart Walk walks around the perimeter of Parkland College!)

Friday, October 24, 3 – 4 pm (outside)

Thursday, November 20, 3 – 4 pm (inside)

Gloves, bags, treats and the admiration of the Parkland College community will be provided. Please join us!

Sign up at our table in the College Center on Monday, August 25 from 10 – 2 or Wednesday, September 3 from 10 – 2, or e-mail parklandreads@parkland.edu.

Parkland College Clean Up Project is sponsored by the Office of the President, Parkland Reads, Student Government, Sustainable Campus Inititative, and Student Life.

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Coffee grounds, egg shells,
tea bags, used paper napkins,
peels, skins, seeds, leaves, weeds.
Step into my green pail and
I’ll turn you into compost.

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Trash Tanka? Is that another name for a garbage truck?

Well, no!

You’re probably familiar with a haiku, which is a short poem consisting of three lines of five, seven and five syllables. A tanka is a short poem consisting of fives lines of five, seven, five, seven and seven syllables.

So a tanka could be described as a haiku with two extra lines. Kind of like turning a Civic into an Accord.

Haul it Away Haiku 1 can be turned into Trash Tanka 1 by adding two more lines:

If I throw you out,
will you sit in a landfill
for one hundred years,
the consequences of you
haunting me all of my life?

Fun, yes?

I hope you’ll comment and send in your own trash/recycling/composting-related haiku and tanka.

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