The Piedmont Highlander

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The Piedmont Highlander

The Piedmont Highlander

Underclassmen advocate activism

On the Piedmont Middle School(PMS) campus, one will find old desks converted to plant nurseries, signs and announcements raising awareness on plastic usage, a school garden, greenhouse, and a Green Team class. PHS is far behind in the effort to promote environmental sustainability.

A group of freshman may be the catalysts to spark a PHS green movement.

The Environmental Student Network (ESN) is the result of the environmental culture shift that originated from the middle school. Its two founders, freshman Emma Seevak and Maryse Suppiger, are former leaders of the middle school club the “Plastic Pwnies,” a 30-person group whose goal was to raise awareness about plastic use and to decrease usage.

Though the 15-member ESN, made up of only freshman, is in its first year, Seevak and Suppiger see the potential for the club to plant seeds for an environmental movement at the high school.

“What it seems like to me is that nobody is opposing this movement of being greener,” Seevak said. “It’s more just people are worried about the cost, and everyone’s already doing [the activities] they’re doing right now. Nobody’s willing to take the extra step into the movement of being green.”

One can look to PMS as a model for creating a green movement. A major factor in PMS’s green awareness can be attributed to the Green Team class, an elective which all sixth graders take during their elective rotation, and can choose to take in seventh and eight grade. The class began four years ago when PMS teacher John White realized that he could help restructure society so that it was sustainable by teaching middle school students how to live sustainably.

“I see [environmental sustainability] as absolutely essential first century education,” White said. “Everyone is all focused on digital age, and that is all fine but there is no life without a healthy biosphere. We live on a finite planet. We can not have perpetual growth, it is impossible. ”

White attended a summer seminar with PMS principal Jeanie Donovan the summer before the Green Team class began. White said Donovan became an immediate supporter of the program and has supported all of their projects thus far.

One project the Green Team worked on was a 550 gallon rain collection system that they now use to water their plants.

“We always have six to seven projects going on,” White said. “I just try to manage all the kids with walkie talkies and by walking around and making sure they are [on task]. It is a student independently driven class.”

This year, the Green Team class has had about 20 seventh and eighth graders in each semester’s class.

Seevak said the green movement took off at PMS because a handful of teachers became extremely devoted to promoting the cause. Now, Green Team is a permanent fixture within the middle school. Its members speak at grade wide assemblies and can be heard every day on the morning announcements with reminders about environmental practices. The school continues to raise awareness and to work on green projects such as a greenhouse to maintain a garden year-round.

Trying to bring the movement up to PHS, however, brings the challenge of raising funds, gathering teacher support, and trying to reach students without being annoying.

White has proposed the ROP Permaculture Design class to the high school administration. The class is focused on teaching students about a sustainable design protocol, and by the end of the course students will be certified in this type of design.

“It is not so concerned about how beautiful our yards can look. It is more about how we get things to grow without depleting all of our finite resources,” White said. “We would literally be redesigning the physical parts of the campus and doing site analysis of the school or a yard or landscape.”

White said students in the class would also take part in internships with local environmental sustainability companies. Though the class has not been approved for the 2013-14 school year, White hopes that it will be available one day at the high school.

“It is going to take [the administration] making this class a priority, or It’s going to take a faculty member at the high school willing to take it on, or me going up to the high school,” White said. “It will also take the students demanding it and I think there will be more people demanding it when the students who have been in Green Team are up at the high school.”

Until then, ESN will have to tackle the environmental challenges at the high school without built in support in the form of a high school Green Team class. So far, ESN has moved compost bins down to Witter Field and has begun working on a larger-scale project to insert native plants to replace the grass in the corner of the quad lawn nearest the library entrance. Seevak said the grass is not used because of its steep slope, and is not environmentally friendly because it uses large amounts of water. Seevak and Suppiger have consulted Principal Rich Kitchens, Assistant Superintendent and Green Initiative chair Randall Booker, and PUSD gardener Bill Cwyner about the project. Seevak said all three support the effort, but the project will depend on how much money ESN and the school can rise to pay for the excavation of the Quad’s buried sprinkler system.

Seevak also said the PHS will need students to back the green initiative if it is to gain footing.

“We need a faculty member to become obsessed with being green, and for the students to care more,” she said.

Though the middle school’s green culture shift has taken off, it was a long process that led up to this moment. Seevak acknowledges that the green movement may take time to catch on at PHS.

“Shifting people’s attitudes is really hard,” Seevak said. “The middle school green team took three years before it really got off the ground and before everyone knew what it was, and began making an impact.”

Still, Seevak said by the time current freshman are seniors, the lower grades will already have gained exposure to environmental awareness.

“It will definitely shift the culture when my grade is upperclassmen because I think that when the big people in campus are really showing concern for the environment and telling people not to litter and demonstrating by actually composting their banana peels and stuff, that will definitely spread,” she said.

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