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The Stillwater Area High School Environmental Club is a new student group founded this past fall dedicated to educating themselves and others on environmental and sustainability issues and contributing to solutions. They meet weekly on Mondays from 12:45-2:10 at Stillwater High School and are open to all students and community members, but mostly consist of students.
Most meetings involve doing simple projects such as collecting and planting native seeds, building and hanging birdhouses, or cooking plant-based meals, but there are longer-term projects the club works on as well including currently advocating for solar in the district, educating students about energy efficiency, and distributing energy efficiency kits a teacher received, and planning and hosting the Earth Day clean-up. This clean-up was planned in advance and a way to engage people outside of the club in environmental work for our community. We strive to contribute to a community that is sustainable. We want to maintain natural spaces and lessen our carbon footprint.
Between the Lily Lake and Bridgeview clean-ups, a total of around thirty total people showed up. Bridgeview ended up collecting four bags of small trash as well as large items like tarps, chains, tires, and even a full plastic trash can! Lily Lake collected the equivalent of three full bags, but there were many small individual pieces of trash that went into that. This is just as important as the big items because animals can ingest these smaller pieces which is very harmful to them and the ecosystem as a whole.
Through different projects, the Stillwater Environmental Club has collaborated with many teachers, administrators, and community groups, including Sustainable Stillwater MN on this clean-up and upcoming projects. The SAHS environmental club is looking forward to continuing to collaborate with Sustainable Stillwater MN and others in the future to improve our community!
Written by the Stillwater Area High School Environmental Club Students
Earth Day photos by Addie Foote, Kelsey Depew, Louise Watson, and Barb Bickford
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