Environmental club is focused on improving environment conditions across campus.
The club was founded by Danae Sprouse in 2019 when a student came to her with the idea. She was instantly on board, due to her similar interests in nature and science, and decided to start the club. Since then, the club has grown in popularity and influence.
“I facilitate ideas and projects, but really it’s the students that make things happen and come up with new proposals,” said Sprouse.
According to the Scientific American Magazine, the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the United States, starting an environmental club at school is a great way to get students energized about taking care of the Earth and helping their community, while learning about some of the most important issues facing the world in the 21st century.
Environmental club focuses on anything environmental that affects the campus, students, and as well as anything global. Currently, their main focus is planting trees on campus for an Arbor Day celebration. Arbor Day Foundation is a 501 nonprofit membership organization dedicated to planting trees. According to their website, the Arbor Day Foundation has more than one million members and has planted more than 350 million trees in neighborhoods, communities, cities and forests throughout the world.
“We’re a very friendly and collaborative group of kids, trying to help the school be more eco-friendly,” said Libby Hord, a senior and co-president of environmental club.
Their main goal as a club is to become something called a tree campus, which is through the Arbor Day Foundation. Annually, certain criteria must be met for the school to officially be labeled a tree campus. They have to plant a certain amount of trees before their application is accepted. The project they are currently working on is planting nine trees around campus, replacing those lost by recent storms in the past year. Moon Valley Tree and Plant Nursery donated one tree to the club, and the other eight were paid for by Kiwanis with help from the Key Club.
Environmental Club will be at lunch on First Friday, celebrating Arbor Day and speaking on details of how the project was implemented. After this, the club will be wrapping up their tree campus application process and working on their next project, the Thirst Project. The Thirst Project is a walk that is meant to help with the understanding of water as a resource in the environment. They have also worked to pick up trash off of campus and prevent littering, and were also possibly thinking of getting a garden going.
“I joined because I wanted to help keep the campus free from littering and help plant more trees,” said Daniel Piacquadio, a senior.
Environmental club meets every other Thursday in Sprouse’s room, #801, and is still accepting new members. Anyone interested in the environment and helping the campus is encouraged to join.