In the United States, the average school consumes on the order of thousands of pounds of paper,
40,000 pounds of food waste, and uses over 200 kWh/m2 of electricity annually.
This sounds like a lot, and it is.
But there's a silver lining.
tons of room for improvement.
1 in 6 people in the United States go to or works at K-12 school.
That’s around 60 million people.
The numbers get even larger if you include trade schools, colleges, universities or other
continuing education programs.
Chances are you, or someone you know attends a school of some kind.
Which means changing those numbers is possible.
And if you decide to take this on, know you are not alone.
There are dozens of organizations across the country working to improve the sustainability
of schools.
This is a place where you can really do something.
If you are in school, or know someone in a school, or even vote in a district with a
school you can make a difference.
Now, there are a lot of people with a lot more experience in this field than I have
so I’m not going to sit here and tell you how to build your school’s sustainability
plan, but I am going to tell you some stories.
I want to share why it was important to me and some people I know to learn about environment
and sustainability when we were young and in school.
When I was a sophomore in high school one of my teachers assigned us an essay.
The prompt, write about something that you do but argue why you shouldn't.
I chose eating meat.
I’d just read the omnivore's dilemma, that was the year Supersize Me came out, and I
a bunch of my friends had started taking the one Environmental Science class that my high
school offered.
I ended up accidentally arguing myself into being a vegetarian.
The next year, I took that one Environmental Science class.
And I'd be lying if I didn’t say that it was pretty formative in shaping the trajectory
of my life.
I ended up studying Environmental Science in college, filmed a bunch of Keystone and
divestment protest.
I ended up getting a job making videos about the environment, started this YouTube channel
and now I’m in grad school studying Climate Science.
I know not everyone who takes an environmental science class, or goes outside, or installs
a solar panel, or joins a sustainability club is going to singularly obsessed with climate
change.
But there are some real-world effects that happen, when you bring the environment into
the classroom.
Or better yet, bring the classroom into the environment.
So I called up my high school teacher, the one who teaches that one environmental science
class at the school.
Hey how are you?
Hey Mrs. Rhile!
[MRS RHILE]
I think making kids fall in love with the outdoors definitely makes a difference.
We were just in Acadia this past weekend, and this young woman who had never been camping,
and she camped for two nights.
And she loved it.
She had a blast.
That sparks something in kids, of like I want to keep doing this.
I’ll never forget a kid sitting there in seaweed and looking at me and going “this
is what I want to do with my life.”
And I’m thinking: “What?
Sit in mud?”
They’re really into it, they’re really seeing the science.
There is so much to be said for that versus here this is what the book says.
If a student wanted to start making their school more sustainable, well that’s where
I might talk to my parents and say: “Okay what organizations are around here?
Who could we contact?
Who might want to help us?”
I do see the hope, I see the hope with my students.
They want to make these changes.
And I do think they’re going to do something about it.
[Miriam] And as she says, you definitely do not have
to be a teacher or a parent to make this kind of impact.
Introducing, my wonderful sister Karen:
[Karen] I was taking a science class in 7th grade.
And I had this really magnificent teacher named Mrs. Ripa and me and my friend Molly
looked at what we were learning about, and the sustainability that we were learning about,
just in middle school, and we were like: "Our school doesn't do this!"
And we went around and were like: "Okay, so we collect bottles, but where do these bottles
go?"
And we learned, all the bottles get collected, and then they just get thrown in the trash.
And that all of the paper that all of the people may or may not be putting in the recycling
bins just get thrown in the trash.
And we went around the school and every Thursday we went and we collected all of the paper
and we worked with a local recycling plant to come and collect it every week.
And I'm very happy to say that this program has continued on since the time that I left
middle school.
I would recommend, or suggest, first looking at: What does your school already do?
For in the case of my schools, people were putting things in the recycle bins already,
but then they weren't going someplace.
They weren't actually being recycled.
They were just being put in the trash.
And so that was the problem that we had to solve.
Figure out what exactly the problem is, or how much your school does or does not do.
Another thing is look around you at what your local community does.
[Miriam] And this isn't just for k-12 schools: at your
job, or university, or college, you can start implementing these ideas.
I'm going to let Youtuber and activist, Taylor explain.
[TAYLOR ] So when I was in college I wanted to make
my campus more sustainable.
So I picked a project: getting the campus dining halls to compost food waste.
I did some research, came up with a plan for how it could work and requested a meeting
with some of my school's administrators.
Surprisingly, they were really willing to listen.
It took a lot of meetings and time and joining an environmentalist club to find some other
people to help me but it has been years since I graduated and there is still campus-wide
composting at my school.
And, I did all of this as an English major, those writing and research skills helped a
lot.
And I say all this because the world needs climate scientists for sure, but we also need
journalists and artists and lawyers and politicians and activists to fix this problem.
So no matter what you're interested in there's room to study climate change as part of that.
And there's room for you in this movement.
[MIRIAM] These are just a few anecdotal stories from
people in my life.
But they aren’t alone.
There are organizations across the country and the world, working to make schools more
sustainable.
And more than likely, there is one working in your community.
Seriously, look how many of these there are!
If you are a teacher looking to incorporate sustainability into your class, a student
looking for support in creating a green team or other initiative, a parent or community
member – I have links for you in the description on how to get started and maybe more importantly
how to keep going.
This video was sponsored by the Columbus Zoo and their Teen Eco Summit – If you want
to learn more about and a little bit about the talk that I gave while I was there, check
out the links below too.
Thanks so much for watching, Bye!