The first annual Earth Week, organized by the Lorax club with help from Leadership, was held on campus from April 20-24. According to the organizers, interest in the week was not has high as they had hoped.

On April 22, at the request of the Lorax club, many classes were conducted outside.  The intent was to get the students “to talk about the environment,” said Lorax Club co-leader, senior Marissa Monopoli. The week also featured  a recycling basketball competition on April 23.

On April 20 students were encouraged to sign an environmental pledge. “Different people from leadership and I walked around and we have three pledge papers. We got a good amount of people to write down something that they will be environmentally conscious of, or something that the students will commit to do to reduce their waste for the next whole year, starting from the moment they made the pledge,” explained Monopoli. “For me, I pledged for less time in the shower, especially because we’re in a drought,” added Monopoli.

“Realizing that your small changes can make an effect is really significant,” said senior co-leader Margaret Hunger.

The idea for a week devoted to environmental issues came about after Lorax club members met with like-minded students from other district campuses.

“We met up with the environmental clubs at Miramonte, Las Lomas, and Acalanes and they’re really excelling. They’re more green: they have compost bins. And we felt that Campo was lagging in that department. Earth Week was our initiative to get the ball rolling and get our student body to start thinking about the environment,” explained Monopoli.

“We had to coordinate with the leadership class and we talked a lot to Alex Gannett, who is our ASB president. We’ve been working with Leadership a lot to plan this. They were really amazing about getting the word out on social media and putting up posters everywhere, we were really impressed by their work,” said Monopoli.

Monopoli admitted that, while the week was a good first step, there is much more that the campus can do to catch up with the level of interest and action happening at other schools.

“We recognize that we didn’t have a lot of time to plan,” Monopoli said. “I know a lot of people weren’t aware we had dress up days and activities. Next year we hope to get the members to plan early so the student body will know how significant of a week [earth week] is just like our spring week.”

To keep Earth Week going next year, the seniors in the Lorax Club hope to put the other members of the club in charge. “We have a few juniors we hope will get involved next year for the club,” explained Hunger.

The club hopes to improve by “planning earlier to get the word out,” said Hunger. “For the donation day we could have had scheduled drop off places and have had people advertise [Earth Week] more on social media. Get on the monthly flush, and have more posters around school,” added Hunger.

“[Next year] leadership will probably make it one of their official weeks. Make Earth Week just as significant as spring week,” said Monopoli.