After learning about the damage humans create in the environment, senior Cate Skowronski and some other students decided they wanted to try to make changes close to home.
“I took AP Environmental Science last year as a junior, and it really opened my eyes to just the amount of damage we do every day by our simple everyday lifestyles,” Skowronski said. “It was really shocking and a little sad to learn all this stuff during the class, so that’s why after the class a few of us decided we wanted to get involved and make a club.”
That group is Baldwin’s Green Club, which was formed at the start of this school year. The club’s sponsor is science teacher Tina Gaser.
“My students approached me and asked if I would sponsor a Green Club so that we could make little changes within our community and the school,” she said.
One of these changes is the “Tree-Plenish” project the club is running.
Tree-Plenish is a non-profit organization started in 2019 by high school students in Massachusetts. Now, more than 500 schools participate.
“Our goal for this year was to partner with Tree-Plenish and off put at least some of the carbon output of the school,” senior Jonus Ruvolo said.
For this event, members from the community bought tree saplings, which will be delivered to the school. On April 21, students, volunteers, and people who bought saplings will be planting these trees in the community.
“Our goal was to sell 100 trees,” Gaser said. “Right now, we are at 156 trees.”
Skowronski has helped organize Baldwin’s involvement with the project.
“I want to thank everyone who helped participate in our tree planting event. It was really touching to all of our club board members to see that other people want to be involved in this club beside the members who attended the meetings,” she said.
The event works towards the Green Club’s goal of bettering the environment.
“Our main goal has been to get more people involved in thinking about how we can better our environment here at the school,” Skowronski said.
The way humans treat the environment affects their lives, she said.
Ruvolo agreed.
“Our future is going to depend on how we treat the world around us. If we destroy everything now, we’re not going to have anything left for us to preserve in the future,” Ruvolo said.
