Enhanced environmental club spreads its roots
By Jane Eskildsen, ’15
The solar panels on the roof and the place where the trash goes are two situations that UA Green Roots is investigating every other week on mondays after school.
The revamped environmental club, UA Green Roots, is being enhanced, courtesy of the new leaders involved. Senior Co-Presidents Sarah Baryluk and Justine Frerichs have taken on the challenge of creating environmental awareness in UA.
With the help of junior Vice President Emma Dorfman, the team hopes to attract many new members of all grades during the remainder of the school year.
“We really hope to create the whole school’s participation instead of just a small group of students,” Baryluk said.
Through Facebook, Twitter and a new blog that describes all the activities the club will do, Baryluk, Frerichs and Dorfman hope to make the club more inviting to new members throughout the school.
“Last year the activities were geared a lot towards raising money,” Baryluk said. “So this year we’d like to focus on raising awareness and activism.”
Each month the leaders hope to carry out at least one activity which will contribute to the environment.
Some of the activities that UA Green Roots has planned include bike to school day, vegetarian for a day challenge and an e-waste drive.
UA Green Roots hopes to push the rest of the school to be active in the environment whenever possible.
If more students were to take part in biking to school, there would be less traffic around the school in the morning and it would be more environmentally friendly. Also suggested by the leaders, was carpooling. It is efficient and better for the environment than driving multiple cars to school.
“We have a community that can make a change and make a difference,” Frerichs said. “A lot of people don’t have that luxury.”
UA has the resources to contribute to the environment. Simply having students recycle would give more to the environment. If each student cuts down on their amount of trash, UAHS would be a much more environmentally friendly school.
The team wants to use this luxury by creating a solid foundation for the years to come.
Baryluk and Frerichs hope to see UA Green Roots blossom throughout the year and then become a popular club in the years to come. The three will lay the foundation by taking part in as many environmentally friendly actions as possible.
“We want to carry on the tradition,” Dorfman said. “We do that by being active in the environment and trying to get people to really care.”
Although some may think that biking or walking to school is inconvenient, Dorfman thinks otherwise. Biking and carpooling alike would greatly help the environment.
“It isn’t really that inconvenient if you are helping in a significant way,” Dorfman said.
Image Caption: From left to right: junior Emma Dorfman, senior Justine Frerichs and senior Sarah Baryluk. They hope to atract new members every other monday. This year UA Green Roots will carry out many different activities to help the environment.
Image by: Kota Ashton