GHS Environmental Club Looks Toward New Year of Initiatives, Activism
As 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg draws attention across the world as the leader of a world-wide environmental movement, young people in Guilford are ready to do their part.
After helping carry a successful drive to ban plastic bags in town, working alongside advocacy group BYO Guilford, the Guilford High School Environmental Club plans to continue promoting local efforts to create sustainable, environmentally friendly practices in their town while also participating in the larger global movement to combat human-caused climate change.
These efforts always start at home, club co-president Kira Stankewich said at the club’s first meeting on Sept. 24.
“Our main goal is just to make sure our school is environmentally aware and friendly,” she said.
Though there is certainly a feeling of concern and urgency, the club started the year with a very positive outlook, coming off several successful projects last year, and encouraged by their progress in bringing awareness to Guilford.
“That’s where I think the kids can have the biggest impact is starting in the town that they live in and getting people inspired here,” said Allison O’Brien, a biology teacher who is starting her first year as the club’s advisor. “People that are inspired in Guilford can inspire people in Connecticut...and [the inspiration] can just come out and move out.”
The club will be promoting and participating in several new environmental initiatives within the school, Stankewich said, including ColorCycle, a program launched by Crayola to recycle used markers, and Litteratti, and hybrid social media app that allows people to compete in cleaning up litter.
A $500 grant from the Guilford Foundation will help the club test some eco-friendly changes in the school cafeteria, Stakewich said. Using metal instead of plastic flatware or trying paper instead of plastic straws were some of the changes that the grant could help with.
“It seems pretty simple, but it can help out a lot,” Stankewich said.
The overall environmental awareness of Gen Z is something that O’Brien has noticed growing over the last four years she has spent as a science teacher. Awareness of good habits like recycling and knowledge of facts and statistics concerning the effects of climate change are endemic among that population.
O’Brien attributed this partly to the kind of topics covered in school science curriculum, but also to their ability to connect with ideas and people all over the world through social media.
“I think that’s where they get a lot of their information, from the social media,” said O’Brien, “which is good and bad...I think in terms of awareness, social media is good, but also you need to look a little bit deeper into things, and sometimes I think high school students have a hard time doing that.”
The school offers elective science courses that specifically focus on environmental issues and offer more detailed delving into climate change, O’Brien said.
Elle Petra, a member of the club, has dug deeper on her own. Petra has participated in several recent climate-related protests, including at Jacobs Beach and in Hartford, and also joined the Sept. 20 Climate Strike organized by Thunberg.
She said that the United Nations’ recent reports on the tremendous dangers of climate change galvanized her into getting involved.
“I wasn’t necessarily inspired,” Petra said. “I was scared for my life.”
She said that reading projections that show risk of extreme weather, food shortages, and other dangers in the next 20 to 30 years without large-scale change made wonder if her own children would “have a planet they can actually live on.”
Living in a small town with their limited resources and reach, O’Brien emphasized that members of the club would continue to focus on local issues. But young people like Thunberg have clearly shown Guilford’s teens that they have the power to affect change on a large scale, no matter who they are or where they live.
“I think it’s certainly important for them to understand what’s happening more globally with this stuff,” said O’Brien.