A strange phenomenon occurs when ICSD students make the transition from the middle schools to IHS. Suddenly, a disregard for compost grows, and the compost is contaminated while the trash is filled with biodegradable materials. In fact, the level of contaminants in the school’s compost reached a point in 2015 where Cayuga Compost could no longer accept the compost for several months. They agreed to resume taking the school’s compost under the condition that IHS would work to lower the contamination.
IHS students in Green Team have been working to do their part in the fight for the environment. This has mainly included spreading awareness about conservation throughout the school. Green Team organizes the collection of classroom materials at the end of the school year for future reuse, as well as the distribution of caps and gowns at graduation. When the threat of lead in the water arose and large water dispensers dominated the hallways, Green Team urged for the plastic cups to be recycled and for students to bring their own reusable water bottles. Last spring, the art exhibit “Chris Jordan: Running the Numbers” was welcomed to the halls of IHS. The prints show an artistic manipulation of wasted materials in the U.S. One series showed one million plastic cups: the amount wasted on U.S. airlines every six hours. These prints were later hung in other schools throughout the district.
Green Team’s main focus is perfecting the composting system. Several generations of IHS Green Teams have experimented with numerous creative methods to encourage students to compost. These have included signage, special lids with openings that would allow only certain wastes into the compost bins, the beginnings of an educational video, and compost monitoring. With limited resources, however, most of these approaches were abandoned. Signage is unclear or generally ignored. The video has taken longer to finish than originally expected and remains incomplete. National Honor Society members have occasionally monitored the compost as part of community service hours, but not frequently enough to make a significant impact.
Fortunately for the carbon footprint of IHS, a group of Cornell students at the School of Engineering has reached out to Green Team for a sustainability project. This may provide an alternative to the cycle-inefficient composting, since the engineering students have access to more resources. When Cornell students met with the Green Team in May, they came up with the idea of constructing a solar-powered motor to rotate the compost. This aerates the organic materials to speed up the process of decomposition. The resulting nutrient-rich soil can be used in the school’s garden. In order to keep the level of contaminants low, the Cornell students have agreed to give insight on the usual procession of signage, the arrangement of the waste bins, and compost bin lids. Furthermore, they have agreed to educate the student body about composting through presentations at the start of this school year.
Besides composting, Green Team has been attuned to other forms of climate action. In May, Green Team held a screening of Disobedience, a film released last April about the use of civil disobedience to halt climate change. The documentary tells how in 1978, a scientist working for Exxon Mobil, a gas and oil corporation, discovered the climate would change due to emissions. Exxon “climate-proofed” its oil rigs and predicted a five-year window of time in which the problem could be fixed. Then, along with other big oil companies, Exxon founded the Global Climate Coalition, a group whose purpose is to spread doubt about climate data. Now, nearly 40 years later, climate activists across the world struggle against coal power plants, extraction of the crude oil bitumen from tar sands, lignite coal mining, and oil pipelines.
Money from fossil-fuel companies has a lot of clout in the government. Since so many economies are built on or dependent upon fossil fuels, it will be necessary to make monumental changes in them. Additionally, the Paris Agreement, created at the United Nations Climate Change Conference last December, is not legally binding, meaning that the nations involved create their own voluntary goals for cutting their emissions.
After the screening of Disobedience, students discussed local environmental issues to research, including the Constitution Pipeline that would transport natural gas in New York State, fracking, extreme weather, and gas storage underneath Seneca Lake. The safety of the environment can be protected at even the level of a public school system by conserving resources and spreading awareness of the issue.