Nicodemus Wilderness Project -- Global Registry of Apprentice Ecologists

My name is Ella and I am now a college freshman pursuing a degree in Environmental Science. A few years ago, I would've told you that I was going to be studying business but I started paying attention to the voices around the world protesting for a protected planet. I knew climate change was a real issue but I never felt that I could be one to make a difference until young people like me started making appearances at global conferences and organizing marches. These peers of mine were activists in every sense of the word and they were making a real impact. At my age. I suddenly felt empowered to take action in my own community.
In my sophomore year of high school, I joined the Green Action Club that a few friends of mine had started the year prior. They had implemented a compost system in the high school and were hoping to extend it to our Carmel Clay School District and begin new projects. I was encouraged by their hard work and hoped to help with similar successes in the future. Some of the other club members and I brainstormed ways to engage with the community and collectively help the environment. We decided that a tree-planting event would be a great way to accomplish this goal. I had attended a tree-planting event that summer as a volunteer with the Carmel Clay Parks & Recreational Department and had a general idea of how many moving parts were involved with a project like this. It was unfamiliar but my peers and I were determined to work together to help the environment and our community. We brainstormed and researched ideas to fundraise money to purchase native trees and the tools to get them in the ground and what land we would use to plant them. We reached out to different people and companies that could help or benefit from the project. After a reasonable path forward had been formed, something that none of us had expected uprooted all of our plans. COVID-19 shut down our school district, our community, and the world. There was no time to worry about the environment. Our plans would have to wait.
The next year, our school resumed with a hybrid schedule like many others across the nation. Sports, clubs, and any other large gatherings were highly discouraged so I was fearful that our work would never come to fruition. As the Green Action Club slowly began the next year, I was asked to take a leadership role and lead the tree-planting event planning. We made hardly any progress that year and no one knew how long the pandemic would last. Near the last half of my junior year, I was researching scholarships and found the Nicodemus Wilderness Project which sparked my determination to follow through with our event. It reminded me that my involvement would and could make a difference and inspire others to do the same. We began meeting more regularly and made a great connection with a city councilman who had publicly announced his campaign to plant 10,000 trees in Carmel and surrounding areas. We worked together to gain support and plan the logistics for planting the trees. Over the next year, we helped the campaign raise over $10,000 and we also created a petition to show citizen support for climate action in the city of Carmel.
We faced some challenges with securing land to plant the trees due to permits and long-term upkeep after the initial planting of the saplings. So our Plan B was to hand out saplings to citizens to plant in their own yards. We came up with a list of comprehensive and easy-to-use instructions and created a QR code to paperlessly share the information. In May of 2022, we hosted a total of 3 outreach events in different areas of the city and successfully handed out 1,000 native tree saplings. Not only will these trees continue to grow and sequester carbon for the next hundred years, but they will also provide a habitat for many species and improve soil health and reduce erosion. While handing out saplings, our group started conversations with many interested citizens about the purpose of planting trees and climate action in general. I personally handed trees to kids and even toddlers who were so excited to have a sapling and be able to plant it in their own yard. I imagine that as these kids grow, they will be able to see their tree do the same and build an everlasting connection with nature. I'm incredibly proud of the work that our group was able to accomplish and I hope that we were able to empower others to support the environment in their own ways.
Even though I am moving on to a new part of my life outside of Carmel, the culture and passion that has grown in the Green Action Club and the surrounding community will continue to do good for the environment. On August 1st, our local city government passed the Climate Action Plan that will strive towards reduced emissions, cleaner energies, and more natural areas in our city. The petition that we created reached nearly 1,000 signatures which advocated for our mayor to adopt our tree-planting campaign as part of its key sustainability initiatives. I feel confident that in the next few years, our city officials and citizens of Carmel will be able to accomplish the goal of planting 10,000 trees in the community. Since I grew up in Carmel my entire life, I have witnessed firsthand the surprisingly driven development of residential and commercial infrastructure and I am grateful for sustainable development to be part of that now. My experience and the values of the Nicodemus Wilderness project have led me on a track toward lifetime advocacy for environmental sustainability. I hope to contribute to environmental policies in state and potentially federal government that protect the ecological and social systems.