Planning a Green Fair for Biologists
Most biologists welcome opportunities to learn about environmentalism. A green fair is a great way to increase awareness and commitment to environmental justice and sustainability in life science work. Let’s review the steps for planning a successful green fair for biologists.
Choose Exhibitors based on your goals and values
Since biologists can play a role in environmentalism by improving the sustainability of their lab work and supporting environmental justice, a green fair can be community-focused, science-focused, or both. Choose the right mix of non-profit environmental justice groups, in-house teams, external lab service providers, lab suppliers, and sustainable local businesses as exhibitors to help meet your organization’s sustainability goals and values. Invite local organizations focused on nature conservation that are seeking volunteers and support. Biologists have specialized knowledge that can be helpful to educate the public. Biologists who are runners, mountain bikers, or paddlers may be interested in helping out nature conservation organizations with a little volunteer fieldwork. Invite charities involved in local sustainability, like your local food pantry in need of donations. Invite your facility team members to have a tabletop at the fair to show how your scientific facility operates. When you work in a lab, you might not appreciate the complexity of how your building automation systems work. It’s helpful for biologists to meet people who can help them in the future, for example, when an alarm goes off on a ULT freezer early on a Saturday morning. Be ready to give suggestions to help internal facility and operations teams on show how they provide support in the background for the science going on. Invite external waste services and lab suppliers to show how their programs and products work to reduce pollution and lab carbon footprints, like biohazardous waste service your facility is using. Any external partners that support biologists to engage in greening initiatives should be considered.
Once you have pulled together a list of organizations to invite, designate a number of slots for each type of focus to get the mix that matches your goals. Ideally, one person manages the list of invited exhibitors and responses. Invitations should go out at least two months ahead of the event. Communicate expectations that any food or giveaways offered at the green fair can not undermine the message of the event. If an exhibitor is local business is selling sustainable products it can cause confusion if they don’t make that clear. Or tell invited organizations no giveaways period. All the exhibitors and tabletops should align with the vision for your green fair.
Set the Scene for Exchanging ideas
The setup for your green lab fair can maximize chances to discover new sustainability opportunities and partnerships. Schedule an approximately two-hour time slot later in the day when biologists will be able to step away from the lab bench. Choose an indoor space that scientists are apt to walk through or hear the fair going on from their labs. This can coax busy scientists to leave their experiments for a bit. It also avoids any issues with weather, such as rain or winds blowing your fair table tops away. If there are too many organization tabletops at the event, it will be difficult to have meaningful conversations. Cap the number of organizations invited to join the fair. Keep in mind, if you invite twenty-five organizations, you might get twenty participating in the green fair. A green fair passport can prompt everyone to interact with a portion of the green organizations without requiring a visit to every tabletop. Green fair passports are paper cards with spots for participating organizations to stamp for tabletop visitors. Consider holding a seminar talk on a specific topic featuring an expert to present an opportunity for interested biologists to learn more on the day of the green fair. Offer research groups the chance to meet with the seminar speaker who may have different scientific expertise, but common interests in environmental projects. Once you have coordinated the time, space, and invitees, be sure to use email invitations and posters to notify everyone in your labs ahead of the event. It’s essential for a green fair to drive awareness, but real actions and impacts can result from a well-planned green fair.