Park’s Environmental Club focuses on educating and making a positive impact on the environment and the community.They do this by holding meetings and planning events to fight climate change. The club met Feb. 16 to discuss upcoming plans to volunteer for future school events and meet with elementary schools.
Junior and environmental club president Abigail Oppegaard said while the club is fairly new, they are excited to educate and bring awareness to the community.
“We’re new, so there’s not been a lot of time to get footing within the school community,” Oppegaard said. “We just want to work on creating a more environmentally aware school, and community in general.”
Junior Kaylee Rice said the club hopes to help with future school events and recycling to make Park’s practices more economically friendly as well.
“We’re looking into doing compostable utensils for upcoming school dances and other events,” Rice said. “I personally am looking into if we can recycle our printing cartridges that printers use, because right now we’re just throwing them away and it’s really expensive.”
Environmental club advisor Emily Rennhak said the event she most liked to supervise this year has been the pollinator garden.
“Planting the pollinator garden is probably my favorite thing that we’ve done. Students gave up some of their time over the summer to work with the St. Louis Park District.” Rennhak said. “They worked with city employees to buy plants and figure out what native plants would be best serving our immediate environment.”
According to Oppegaard, the club is planning to meet with elementary schools and teach kids about the environment.
“Right now we’re testing out different ways to grow and reuse, because we’re gonna do a partnership with hopefully the elementary schools or a younger youth community,” Oppegaard said. “We’re also going to hopefully do some tree planting, and more pollinator gardens this spring.”
Rice said the club is trying to figure out the best planting methods for elementary-schoolers to learn.
“Right now we are testing out planters, like different planting methods for beans for projects that hopefully will include the elementary schools later this spring,” Rice said.
Rennhak said the environmental club members want to impact the community as a whole, and educate younger students.
“A lot of it is community and like solidarity. And finding hope in the fact that people want to care for the environment,” Rennhak said. “The students are really trying to make an impact on their immediate community. So, looking for recycling programs and trying to get elementary school students more involved in environmental activism.”
Oppegaard said the environmental club is a great way to get in touch with the community and meet other people who are interested in helping the environment.
“We usually have a smaller group, but I think it’s usually really good. The people who are here are really excited to be here and excited about the projects that we have to work on,” Oppegaard said. “If you are even remotely interested in the environment, or plants, or even just like connecting with the community in a different way, this is just a really cool way to do that.”
Rice said the club provided guidance for her on how to figure out how to actually influence the environment and the community.
“I joined because I honestly didn’t know what were the best steps for me to help the environment, and so I felt like this was a really nice way to have guided introduction to figure out what I want to do and how best to help the environment,” Rice said.
According to Rennhak, environmental club gives a place for students to make a difference and have an impact on the world around them.
“Everybody should join environmental club because we all share the same environment. So, we all have the same end story if we don’t take care of it,” Rennhak said. “I think it’s just a really great group for finding solidarity and hope. The world can sometimes be a bit bleak, and it’s very easy to succumb to impending doom, but to actually take action and work towards something with people you care about is a very, hopefully, liberating thing to do.”
Oppegaard said she started environmental club to educate people and give them opportunities to do what they can to help the environment.
“I have cared about the environment for a really long time,” Oppegaard said. “It’s always been something that’s really important to me, and I know that affects everyone from all walks of life. And I just think it’s important to make sure that we all know and are doing what we can to fight climate change and kind of help the environment.”
