The Green Teams at Santa Fe High School are blooming beautifully, just like our gardens. We’ve grown to 250 students. Our teacher sponsors are Tammy Harkins, Polly Otero, Ty Middleton, Tracy Akers, Bret Bernard, Richard Curry, and Kevin O’Brien. The participants have already been working on a greenhouse along with gardens, murals and sending solar ovens to Third World countries. Besides working with the environment, we also promote social sustainability in our community. A group of Green Team students is working on a mural that depicts what we do and don’t want for our future including some green heroes and sheroes from all ethnic backgrounds. Many Green Teamers are also just learning about what it is to be green by watching videos and reading articles. Some students are working on a wilderness program to take other students who have not been on a wilderness trip into our beautiful environs. We’ve installed solar panels to help power one of our most energy consuming buildings to help lower our school’s greenhouse gas emissions. Networking with Adelante, our students are planting seeds to grow fresh fruits and vegetables for our school to promote eating locally grown healthy foods. We hope this will lead to building a garden with Adelante youth that they can access.
The passion of students grows as funding does not. We are currently looking for grants and donations so we can further our programming. Future programs planned include changing our Styrofoam lunch trays to eco-friendly corn-based trays. We also want to start composting our uneaten cafeteria food and build solar fountains on campus. Currently we are doing a campus-wide “Cozy Clothes” drive to benefit homeless youth in our community. We are accepting donations of jackets, gloves, scarves, hats, sweaters, and other warm clothes.
We want to change the way our school runs, and the way our students interact with each other and the community. We wish to encourage each individual’s awareness of how he or she affects the environment, and how that will affect us. We will hopefully attend a few youth climate change conferences in the near future to “think and act globally and locally.” Finally, our hope is to create more curriculum, classes and programs that promote sustainable living and awareness.
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