stapleton94
Registered: November 2011
City/Town/Province: San Diego
Posts: 1
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Just ten more steps to go. Feeling in my arms has become a dimly remembered luxury. Papers are spilling out of the bag faster than I can snatch them back in. I pause to drop the bag and tie it back up for the fifth time this trip. The incessant burning in my arms tells me that I will not be able to pick up that bag again anytime soon. Maybe I can drag the bag the last few feet? Now there’s a hole in the bag. Everything’s pouring out all over the ground – why is there a pizza box in there anyway? Sweaty and frustrated, I take the exploding bag in my protesting arms and charge towards my goal. Only just maintaining my balance, I finally heave the bag into the recycling bin. One classroom down.
Funnily enough, coming into high school, I never pictured myself raiding every classroom for overflowing bags of recyclables to drag all the way across campus for Ecology Club. Before joining the club, this exhausting activity had somehow never appeared on my to-do list. Like the other students at Canyon Crest Academy, I assumed that the custodians took care of any and all recycling at school. I was very wrong. Four years later and I have become a student with much stronger arm muscles and a passion for the environment.
Our club has run the school’s recycling program since our school opened, but it is a very “behind-the-scenes” sort of activity. We unobtrusively enter classrooms after school hours, grab the bag of recycling, quickly refresh the room’s supply of empty bags, and discreetly exit to embark on that treacherous journey to the recycling collection unit. While I certainly relished being able to contribute to my school in this way, I yearned to have a lasting impact on our school campus and community. I aimed to make environmental issues applicable to my peers. I hoped if I were able to provide simple solutions, students would no longer see global warming as an insurmountable problem beyond any individual’s scope. As Vice President of the Ecology Club at Canyon Crest Academy in San Diego, I organized a series of events during Earth Week that involved both the students and our community.
Throughout the week, I made a point of spreading awareness in several different ways. I included environmental statistics and easy “eco” tips in the school announcements, our club’s Facebook and web page, phone calls to parents, and posters displayed around school. The information provided simple ways for students and our families to make effective environmental change in our own lives.
I also organized an electronic waste drive that lasted the duration of the week. I set up several drop off locations throughout the school, and publicized which items our club would be able to accept. This also required mass advertising throughout the community to encourage participation. Apparently, a free e-waste collection was incentive enough because by the end of the week we were overwhelmed with electronics galore. Our community was very enthusiastic about participating and contributing.
On Earth Day I requested that homeroom classrooms participate in a lights out event titled “Earth Hour and a Half” to encourage energy conservation on campus. Teachers who kept their classes’ lights off for the entirety of the 90-minute period were entered into a raffle to win a class party funded by our Ecology Club. A majority of classes at my school participated and were eager to briefly discuss renewable energy and conservation in their classes that day.
Overall, my school campus and community responded even more enthusiastically to my Earth Week than I could have hoped for. Being a part of Ecology Club has allowed me the opportunity to contribute to my community’s environmental wellbeing on larger scale. It is important to care for our community in this way because it encourages lasting environmentally friendly habits and creates a more habitable place for interaction and cooperation in the future. Global progress and improvement begin with small local efforts. Our club continues to be a strong and active presence at a our school, which is now home to native plant gardens, an increasingly efficient recycling program, and numerous solar panels powering the school.
These efforts have inspired me to attain sustainability in my own life. The thought of being a member of a movement that is globally significant humbles me as I find myself continually benefiting from my expanded perspective and my experiences of directing the club as Vice President. I have been able to forge cooperative working relationships as a leader, become a passionate supporter of the input of others and gain a better understanding of how my school campus and community function in the world.
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