Cleanups, kayaking, beautiful views, and great experiences are some of what the Environmental Club have to offer. Mrs. Cecilia Calleros leads the club and enjoys it since she is a science teacher and who cares deeply about the environment.
Recently on November 11, the club sponsored a clean up which offered beautiful bayside views and a great experiences to benefit the local environment..
Junior Javiera Escobar joined Ms. Calleros in her clean up had a positive experience.
“The clean up was amazing and I had a great time helping the environment and being around nature. It was beautiful. Something really interesting happened to me and my friend. We fell off our kayak while trying to get this piece of plastic wrapped around a branch. It was super hilarious and fun at the same time,” she said.
“I also highly recommend doing it. It’s a great experience and a way to help out the environment,” she added.
HOW CLEAN UPS WORK
Students join the club by using the Showbie code, and then get notifications of upcoming events on Remind. They use kayaks to reach parts of the mangroves that aren’t accessible from shore. What they collect: plastic bags that may be eaten by marine life, fishing lines and ropes that may entangle marine life, and other debris that breaks down and pollutes the water with chemicals as it decays.
They use the Cleanswell app to track what they find, so cleanups are citizen science projects as well as service opportunities. The data is used by a global nonprofit called the Ocean Conservancy to study where marine debris originates and how it can be managed.
Ms. Calleros has led (or co-led with STEAM Director Dr Rebecca Shaw) the club for 12 years.
“We try to do cleanups once a month, but if the weather is good and we have a lot of interest, we do two. We also want to start doing short ones during F block on Day 2Ms so people who have a lot of extracurricular activities can participate during the school day. We are planning to do that twice a month,” she said.
Two things that would be great to do on campus are
- maintain the campus forest trail and reduce plastic bottles in the vending machines by stocking drinks that come in aluminum containers or paper cartons.
Sophmore Isabella Gamero attended the clean up for her first time.
“I really likes helping and cleaning the environment. A lot of people showed up so while the first set of kayaks went out, my friends and I stayed back on land and cleaned up the trash there. I would come back and enjoyed going,” she said.
It seems like many first timers have enjoyed there experience so if you have never tried it, now may be a great opportunity.
