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Donated by Rebekah Barrera

November 6th marked the first Science National Honor Society’s (SNHS) campus cleanup to give back to the school community and promote environmental awareness. This club has made it their goal to organize a campus cleanup a few times a year to make a difference and to say no to littering. “We focused a lot on the technological aspect and wanted to bring more environmental aspects to helping our community. And so we noticed that there was a lot of trash around campus and we wanted to do something about it,” expressed Valerie Glen, President of SNHS. This club has also made it their initiative to keep the campus grounds cleaner, and they wish to be able to do this all over the world to come together and make a positive impact.

During this campus cleanup, members of SNHS from different grades all got together and divided into small groups to go around the school armed with trash bags, gloves, and trash pickers. Their goal was to make sure that all the litter was collected and no place was left dirty. The groups then picked up all the garbage on the floor, such as wrappers, food, and empty bottles to ensure that the school grounds stayed clean. “Other environmental initiatives include many more campus clean-ups and we plan on hosting a uniform textile drive in the future to reduce pollution and environmental degradation by reducing the amount of greenhouse gasses being emitted into the atmosphere,” revealed Valerie Glen. In the upcoming years, SNHS plans to have more campus cleanups and more effective drives to reduce pollution and greenhouse gasses so that the Earth could be a greener and healthier place.

At the end of this event, many members of SNHS felt impacted and had more care for the environment. For example, Senior Samira Butler helped participate in the campus cleaning and shared, “I was motivated by the opportunity to make my school a better place through community service. I feel the clean-up had an enormous effect on how the environment is portrayed at our school. Through us all working together we were able to make our school at least 80% cleaner for ourselves, and our wildlife.” Samira Butler explains how motivated she felt throughout the campus cleaning because she knew it was going to lead to something positive. After seeing the final result, Butler was pleased because she saw how much litter there was around the school but once she and her peers collected it all the school already felt pristine and fresh.

Many of the members felt extremely dedicated to this cleaning and tried their best to make sure all the garbage around the school was gone so that the school was spotless. For example, “There was a moment where myself and my group went behind bushes to pick up trash, it felt nice having that much devotion,” Samira said. She never would have thought about going behind a bush to clean up trash but this activity made her feel so committed to the role of making the school a better space. “My favorite part was when we were walking around and seeing all the kids laughing and stuff while also picking up the trash,” said Glen, enthusiastically. As a person who wants to bring more environmental aspects to the community, it made her extremely happy to see all of her classmates having fun working together to clean the school environment. 

By participating in these types of events it makes students more aware of the environment around them. “This cleanup promotes environmental awareness because of how we all got to see firsthand how much trash was littered, and this event inspired me to participate in more cleanups to better myself and the environment,” said Butler. “For the environment specifically we have taken on the Everglades Champion project which certifies our school as being nationally recognized for attempting to protect the environment. We plan to focus our action plan geared more toward the campus and then depending on the response see if it can be implemented in the Everglades,” said Glen. The SNHS club has a variety of things planned in the future to improve our school environment and hopefully protect and better the Everglades.

These present and future events help make students want to be more involved in cleaning up the world because they will make a difference and change you as a person in a positive way.