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NWP Global Registry of Apprentice Ecologists - Pocatello, Idaho, USA

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Pocatello, Idaho, USA
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lizzy2656



Registered: December 2009
City/Town/Province: Pocatello
Posts: 1
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While waiting outside for the school bus to arrive, I saw the janitors throwing away all the garbage from the day. I looked at it in disgust. As a school we were throwing away so many materials that could have been recycled. After pondering, I thought to myself, why hasn’t anyone tried to reduce the amount of garbage we send to the land fields?
The next day I went to my science teacher and told her about my concerns. After talking, we decided, to create an ecology club. This club was latter renamed the Tree Huggers club. We were the first school in our district to have a recycling program. Although recycling around the school became our original mission, the Tree Huggers went above and beyond what was expected.
My name is Elizabeth Cady. I am a senior at Century High School, which is located on the outskirts of Pocatello, Idaho. I started the Tree Huggers club when I was a freshman, along with a recycling program. I am the current and returning president of the club. Along with my team of Tee Huggers we make our school, community, and world a better place to live.
Our area of Idaho is quite diverse. You can have patches of dirt with sagebrush, and then have a patch of lush forest. My school is somewhat isolated which allows for a lot of animals. We have regular visits from snakes, lizards, rabbits, field mice, and a lot of deer, elk, and sometime mountain lions. Because of this diversity we created and adopted many programs that would benefit our school, and community.
Our original project was recycling. It was and still is our biggest project of the year. We take truckloads of plastic bottles, cans, office paper, magazines, newspaper, and old textbooks to the recycling plant every month. which comes to over a thousand pounds every year! Our weekly meetings allow the club to go set out bins, and bring back any bins that are full. By our actions we have recruited many of the teachers to recycle in their classrooms, and have gained members every year. I knew that as a club we could do soothing more than just recycling.
Every year on earth day our school allows us to host a green day! On this day students are allowed to wear green, an animal, or plant costume. We have healthy organic prizes along with many activities during lunch. Some activities include, recycling relays, ecological movies, quizzes, and poster contests. All of the activities increase the student’s knowledge of how to do their part to help the earth . Not only has our support for the club grown within our school, we have also been able to raise money by selling Tree Hugger t-shirts!
To not be hypocritical, our t-shirts are one hundred percent organic. Creating the design for the shirts gets club members involved! After determining what design we want, we send the, shirts to a local independent company for printing. After the shirts are completed we sell the t-shirt to the school and community. For ten dollars a shirt we are able to make enough profit that we can support Earth’s Birthday Project a worldwide project to preserve acres of land for endangered animals. By doing thins, the club was known by the community.
By inviting many professors, and environmental workers to the meetings to speak, we were informed of many things we could do in the community. Soon, the club adopted a section of the portneuf green-way. We wanted to make sure that people trying to take in the beauty of the green-way didn’t have to look at all the trash around. The club cleans our section at least two times a year. Not only did the club become a family outside of home, we started volunteering at the local environmental fair, and alternative gift market.
At this fair we as a club were able to educate over a hundred people about the benefits of worm compost along with helping other booths that had similar projects. Aside from that we help with the alternative gift market. In this particular project people from the community come and buy animals, and/or trees to go to a third world country. As a club we go and help the various booths and become acquainted with other ecological groups within the community. Last year I was allowed to go on the local news station to tell the community about all that the club does, and how the can help the club, community, and world. Although the club, and myself have a lot of projects during the year, the most recent is to get a turbine built next to our school, which continually gets powerful wind gusts through a gap down the road. We hope that by the end of the year the turbine will be approved by the school district.
Throughout these last four years I have been dedicated to creating a strong school, and community awareness of the ecological problems we face. I have learned how to develop and conduct a project, as well as getting involved with the community. I know that as the club continues to lead by example that others will follow. I’m glad that I was able to do my part to make Pocatello and Century High School a greener place to live, and work.
· Date: December 31, 2009 · Views: 6126 · File size: 26.4kb, 66.1kb · : 604 x 453 ·
Hours Volunteered: 1600
Volunteers: 20
Authors Age & Age Range of Volunteers: 18 & 13 to 18
Area Restored for Native Wildlife (hectares): 1.2
Trash Removed/Recycled from Environment (kg): 1814.369
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