yerich
Registered: December 2013
City/Town/Province: New Bern
Posts: 1
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The city of Havelock, North Carolina has experienced urban environmental issues, much like any other city in America. Throughout high school, I have noticed that few Havelock residents are concerned with improving the local environment. Environmental issues such as air pollution, water safety, and the availability of urban green space pervade the city. I saw the challenge of improving my community’s environment in eleventh grade, and sought to start an Environmental Club at Havelock High School in order to encourage the young inhabitants of the city to perform actions to improve the campus environment. The purpose of the Environmental Club is to promote the study of Earth’s environment and to teach club members about issues relating to the environment, while providing students with opportunities and experience in the environmental field.
In order to start the club, I had to request permission for it from the principal of Havelock High School. I had to find a teacher sponsor, and arrange a suitable day of the week and time for the meetings, and write the club by-laws. The club was approved in my twelfth grade year. At the first Environmental Club meeting, I explained our community’s environmental issues to those who attended. I related to the students how the local Neuse River is polluted, and that many Havelock residents are not aware of the steps needed to take preventative measures to safeguard our environment. Some solutions that I proposed to the club members include making a brochure to inform the local residents of the environmental issues that are persistent in our community, organizing a high school campus clean-up, organizing a beach clean-up, planting trees on campus, and making a vegetable/flower garden. Another environmental issue which I have observed on campus is two larges dirt holes by the tennis courts, which used to contain water and fish. I proposed to the club that we rehabilitate this area in order to fix habitat degradation by making it into a marsh garden in which fish could exist once more. The members of the club favored the proposed solutions, and we have decided to execute actions, such as making brochures and planting trees on campus, this semester to solve the local environmental issues. The club’s overall goal has become to educate others about the environment and help them to live in sustainable ways, while also fixing some of the key environmental issues that permeate our community.
I also realized that the club could not battle such a challenge as solving the environmental problems in our community without external help. Thus, I enlisted the help of the Neuse Riverkeeper Foundation in the adjoining town of New Bern to assist the members of Havelock High School’s Environmental Club to solve local environmental problems. The Neuse Riverkeepers agreed to help the club “get on its feet” and to assist the members in our endeavors to clean up the community. I have attended several meetings with the Riverkeepers to discuss actions that the club could take, and together, we realistically brainstormed several solutions, such as planting trees on campus, to fix the habitat degradation in the city of Havelock. The Environmental Club at my high school will collaborate with the local Neuse Riverkeepers Foundation this year to solve some of the persistent environmental issues in our society.
My comprehensive purpose for starting the Environmental Club was to mobilize the students of my school to take initiative in solving the environmental problems that we all face. I communicated the environmental issues which linger in our city, and proposed solutions to the environmental problems, to the club’s members. Lao-tzu observed that “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” My one step was to start the Environmental Club. Our journey is to solve the environmental problems that run rampant in our community.
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