On May 21, 2023, IHS held its second annual Climate Exposition. The event, which took place outside of the Welcome Center and in the IHS parking lot, aimed to educate students on the climate crisis and share ways to increase sustainability in their communities. Various local organizations and businesses were present, including Bikewalk Tompkins, which aims to make walking and biking in Tompkins County safer and more accessible, Sunrise Ithaca, a youth activist organization, and Cornell Cooperative Extension, which aims to connect communities with Cornell’s research. Along with the various tables, there were presentations by a number of groups scheduled throughout the day, including performances by members of the IHS Orchestra, the IHS choir, the Beauty of Color Club, Creative Writing Club, and Cornell Cooperative Extension Tompkins Way2Go.
The event was largely organized by IHS’s Green Outdoor Adventure Team (GOAT), which comes from the synthesis of the Green Team with the Outdoor Adventure Club. Anna Cummings ’23, the treasurer of GOAT, described the club’s trip to the Youth Empowerment Sustainability Summit, where they worked with other students and teachers on ways to inspire change in school districts. The event, according to Cummings, culminated in the creation of a climate action plan for ICSD. “We realized that we needed to implement sustainability directors across the district,” she explained. “As of today, there are postings for the positions across the district.” The hope of this climate action plan is to have a sustainability director at every school in ICSD and two at IHS. Cummings stated that the biggest goals of the Climate Expo were “to educate young people so that they know what’s going on in our world and in our community and what resources there are in Ithaca that address the climate crisis.”
Volunteers at the event also emphasized similar ideas. Claire Russell ’23, who recently joined the GOAT club and is a leader of Supporting Women Impacting Society (SWIS), stated that she decided to help with the event because “GOAT is really great, and I have a lot of fun. I love supporting this group of people, and I think environmental justice and sustainable solutions to climate change are really important.” Eden Lewis ’23, a GOAT member who was one of the main organizers of the event last year, said that the biggest goals of the Expo were to “tell everyone about what Ithaca is doing around the community to focus on sustainability and create sustainable actions within the community.” She also said another goal was “to have different groups of people who are working on sustainability connect with one another and make those connections that can potentially be lasting and long-term.”
I also spoke with Ya Yoi, the founder of Zero Waste Ithaca, one of the initiatives that was present at the expo. Zero Waste Ithaca does work to reduce waste and is currently working with ICSD to implement a switch to reusable lunch utensils. Ya Yoi pointed to single-use plastics like those currently used as utensils at IHS as a dangerous source of contaminants, including so-called “forever chemicals,” which are very dangerous to the environment. Yoi described the organization’s current efforts to replace utensils in the district with reusable “sporks”—a combination of a knife, a fork, and a spoon. According to Yoi, IHS, along with the Boynton and Dewitt Middle Schools, has a dishwasher, so it is possible for reusable utensils to be rolled out rapidly. “We want to make sure that everyone understands at first, that [the sporks] don’t belong in trash bins,” Yoi noted. “That’s a big problem, especially with universal lunch, because people are eating all over the place.” Yoi said that Zero Waste Ithaca hopes that the sporks will be rolled out in September, though the schedule is not decided yet.
Another organization focused on sustainability in relation to ICSD was the Farm-to-School program, which is a part of Cornell Cooperative Extension. The program, according to Tara Morgan, the Education Coordinator, helps support school cafeterias in bringing local New York State produce into their meals. They provide educational programming as well, exposing students to farming, gardening, and food systems. Cornell Cooperative Extension also has a compost education program, according to Adam Michaelides, who runs the program and showcased how composting works at the Climate Expo. The Powerhouse, an energy efficient tiny home that helps educate the community on home energy efficiency, was also present at the Exposition. Jack Wright, the Powerhouse Educator, emphasized the importance that students learn about home energy programs: “I think sometimes when folks hear these programs focused on homes, they think, ‘Well, I don’t own a home so I can’t really access these things,’ but I think learning this information now is really important as you’re making decisions.” Wright’s work also focuses on climate justice. Other programs at the exposition included the Cayuga Watershed Network, which, according to Molly Newman, the program associate, aims to educate the community on how to keep Cayuga Lake healthy and protected.
IHS’s second annual climate exposition continued the strong activism that had been present at the first, and displayed a wide variety of diverse organizations and businesses working on climate solutions. As the world continues to tackle the increasing problem of climate change, many at the exposition voiced the same thoughts: Students, not just high school students, are the future—and need to both learn about climate change and have a voice in creating solutions.