It’s Earth Week at El Camino and you can be part of the festivities without opening your bank account.

Professor Joe Holliday did the honors by leading the events while educating students on how important and easy it can be to change a few habits for the betterment of the Earth.

Holliday taught students as he led them on green bag lunches, educated them on global climate change and participated in a rideshare/bike to ECC that was eco-friendly.

Of course, one week out of the year simply isn’t enough to have a deep impact on the Earth, but raising awareness during Earth Week can inspire many to change their usual life habits.

The Huffington Post contributes by offering an Earth Week challenge that we can all participate in as well.

Their challenge contains steps that can be easily applied to your regular lifestyle. It’s a system that asks you to take on one goal per day and potentially apply it to your everyday life.

Challenges range from eliminating meat from your diet, powering down your electrical devices, cutting your paper waste, reusing bottles, bagging your lunch, using second-hand clothes and lowering your water use.

Although it may not look like much, once you become accustomed to these changes, you may realize how much you don’t need them.

Applying these small daily changes can go a long way.

If you have to take a quick trip to the store and pick up a few items, save gas and ride your bike. Gas prices are high and the emission from your cars does not benefit the environment at all.

The biggest challenge may be powering down your electronic devices.

How often do you leave your computer on throughout the day because you aren’t patient enough to wait for the start up process? What about leaving your laptop and phone on the charger after they are fully charged?

Do you leave the water on while your brushing your teeth for three minutes? What about when you are washing your face? Is it necessary for your showers to last as long as 45 minutes? Do you let the water run while you wash a few dishes? These tasks can easily be toned down when you realize that you may be overusing them.

Resist those urges and exercise patience while paying attention to these issues. This will help the Earth and save you money on your bills.

Raise your awareness during Earth Week, participate and share the information with others. Slowly but surely you will notice these changes are more positive than negative. After all, we all want our positives to outweigh our negatives in life. Why not start here?