Christy Goldfuss, Managing Director of White House Council on Environmental Quality, Eleanor Burke, L-S Environmental Club Advisor, PEYA awardees Michael Bader (’14) and Grace Chin (’15) and U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy.
The Environmental Club at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School traveled to Washington, D.C., last month to receive the 2014 President’s Environmental Youth Award.
The club, which includes Lincoln residents Clara Cousins and Savannah Snell along with Sudbury residents Michael Bader, Brianna Bisson and Grace Chin, received the award for their efforts to bring awareness of climate change to the 1,600 students at L-S and to promote the use of reusable water bottles and recycling. The group raised money to purchase two purified water fountain refilling stations for the school with the goal of decreasing and eliminating the sale and use of one-use plastic water bottles and reducing overall plastic waste at the school.
The group started off its project with a waste audit to measure the plastic waste from the school cafeteria. Next they held a water taste test. The results showed that water from water fountains can taste just as good as water from one-use bottles as long as the temperature of the water is held constant.
The group then embarked on fundraising to purchase the water bottle refilling stations. Members partnered with Next Step Living to recruit local residents to conduct home energy audits, each of which nets $10 for the school. In this manner, the club has raised more than $2,600 to date to fund the purchase of the stations.
Through this project, Environmental Club members learned that they have the power to make a difference at the local school level and also to teach fellow students about the power of individual local action to make a difference on a town-wide and ultimately global level, since community members who’ve taken the home energy audit have learned strategies and improvements to reduce their own carbon footprints.