We’ve all seen the people with the green lanyards striding across our campus, collecting paper from our classrooms, and sorting messes at lunch. Except there’s more to these Mustangs than meets the eye. Who are they? This is a team of one of the newest electives on campus, Environmental Leadership.
What is ELT, and what do they do? Environmental Leadership is a brand new elective at school led by Ms. Louris, and their goal is to make Fallon Middle School an environmentally friendly place in as many ways as possible.
Fallon has had a trash problem for a while now, and it is noticeable. Leftover food and trays are tossed across lunch tables, empty juice boxes litter the blacktop, chip packets are everywhere, and products are in the wrong bins—this list just goes on and on. Ms. Louris’s dedicated group of students is ready to change that.
Ever since the Environmental Leadership team joined Fallon’s varying list of electives, they have made much progress in altering the way our school goes about our waste. “We have started our recycling program, and every Tuesday, our garbage collectors go out to classrooms to get the recycling bins.” Vedanshi Sharma reflects.“We’re doing lunchtime monitoring… to try to start composting,” These students are not telling, but showing us the level of dedication they have towards a greener Fallon.
This passionate Mustang class has also pushed Fallon towards a greener future through many in-class activities, including projects, presentations, and educational videos. The curriculum will teach students about environmental issues, wildlife, and alternative green energy sources. The most recent example is their now-finished outline of a floating metropolis called Future City.
Medha Vattikuti, an ELT student, explains, “It’s a project where we’re making a city on the water because in 100 years most coastal cities will be underwater. So we’re finding a solution for that.” Mustangs are encouraged to use innovative ways to solve environmental problems and learn about why our world is changing.
However, that’s not all of it. Recycling, composting, and projects are only parts of ELT. Environmental Leadership isn’t just about solving Fallon’s major trash problem, it’s also about raising more environmentally aware students for the future ahead of us. Our generation and the many more ahead have to be the ones to stop the degradation of our environment, which has a drastic effect on our everyday lives. Having environmentally aware students is highly beneficial because climate change and pollution are destroying our environment faster than we think.
“We’re also going to learn more about climate change and alternative energy… I’d like to just have a bunch of environmentally aware students who want to go out and improve the world really,” Ms. Louris comments. ELT is a wonderful opportunity to learn about our environment, and how to sustain it. Ms. Louris hopes that by the end of this year, all her students will leave the classroom as environmentally aware leaders, ready to make changes in this world.
“People don’t really care about what they’re doing right now. They’re just throwing whatever they have, wherever they want. Honestly, if we keep doing this we might not have an Earth anymore,” Medha Vattikuti admits devoutly.
In the end, we know Environmental Leadership is going to make a change on campus. You can be part of the change this world needs, you can be a leader of a new green age. Create your future by lending a helping hand to the team. It all starts with the little things- trash in the right bins, responsible use of resources, not littering; it’s just that easy! Even though you may not notice, you’re making their job a lot easier. Next time you see people wearing green lanyards on campus, you’ll know who they are and why they’re here. Go Mustangs!
