High school students assemble “Green Teams,” launch first official environmental service project

By Olivia Allen

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    DAVENPORT, Iowa (Quad-City Times) — After taking a day to detox from finals week, a group of Davenport high school students spent part of their Sunday weeding the Living Lands and Waters tree nursery.

This was the first official project for the group, now known as the “DCSD Green Teams” — an initiative spearheaded by North High School senior Landen Freeman after working for Green Iowa AmeriCorps this summer.

“What I did was try to formalize our environmentalist groups at the high schools in the district,” Freeman said. “These were already independently existing things; I just did my best to create an opportunity for them all to collaborate together and be known as one environmental initiative of Davenport high school students.”

Part of Freeman’s efforts included creating a DCSD Green Teams website.

“On the website, I created a page with a plethora of green organizations in Iowa, Scott County and Davenport, hoping that the green teams in the high schools could utilize that, branch out and make partnerships,” he said.

Freeman said the group’s sponsor, North science teacher Laura McCreery, a frequent Living Lands and Waters volunteer, connected students with the organization for the tree nursery project.

“That’s how we happened upon it [the project]. We don’t know if this necessarily means a long-term partnership with Living Lands and Waters, but we’re always looking to help others. It’s more than just environmentalism, it’s environmental stewardship and leadership. Partnering with others in the community is a crucial role … we haven’t set up any official partnerships yet, but that’s something we’ll explore in the future. We’re trying to branch out right now and make important connections, so that way we can really start to make a huge impact.”

Though only six students — five from North and one from Central High School — participated in the tree nursery project Sunday, McCreery was happy to see this student-led initiative come to fruition, calling the DCSD Green Team “change-makers.”

“It’s very rewarding to see them take charge and want to be the change,” she said. “That’s very empowering … this is the first student-led initiative outside of our building, and we’re hoping to grow every year.”

One up-and-coming DCSD Green Team partnership is with nationwide nonprofit “Tree-Plenish,” to give out tree saplings to be planted across the Quad-City community.

“That will be a big undertaking,” she said. “Tree-Plenish has a class that we’ll take, and in December we’ll start fundraising so that the saplings we give out are free to the community, and we’ll have to find local partners to help distribute them in March and April. It’s a pretty extensive project to offset our carbon footprint.”

Two other members from North, seniors Emma Jauron and Aliyah Flores, agree it’s important to promote environmental efforts and awareness in high schools.

“A lot of kids just don’t know about these issues; not everyone takes the environmental science class. They go through earth and space science or biology, but not everyone might pay attention,” Jauron said. “If you have groups like us to share that knowledge and all the stuff we can do to help, it can help people get started at a younger age. As soon as you join the club, you really open your eyes to these issues.”

“Once you start younger, it almost becomes a habit,” Flores added. “Once we’re out of high school and go off to college, we’re able to spread the word on how to help the environment. We have these solutions that people may not have thought of.”

Jauron, president of North’s environmental club, is excited to start by making a noticeable difference at her own school.

“I’m excited to see how much recycling we end up saving, and just to see students start being more responsible,” she said.

Flores takes the lead in promoting the club for other students, namely through bulletin boards.

“We’ll put things on there that people don’t realize and kind of tug on their heartstrings. We’ll be like, ‘Hey, here’s what’s going on and how it’s making a negative impact; let’s make a positive impact instead by doing this or this,’ and provide solutions,” she said. “You don’t need to go to every single meeting to make a difference — even doing small things like using something other than plastic bottles makes an impact.”

So far this year, North’s green team has gone around to homeroom classes and shared an informational video about how to properly recycle. Jauron said they also planned to sell reusable straws to the student body. Flores said they’re also working to promote through school building announcements

Freeman is the student school board representative for North. He hopes to use his unique platform to promote growth for the DCSD Green Teams.

“There are a lot of really great conversations happening in our green teams and in our environmental science class. I was fortunate to go and see a bunch of presentations about environmental issues directly in our community and region from students in the class, and there were a lot of great ideas,” he said. “I’m still navigating my role, but we’re hoping to bring a lot of these ideas and concerns further into development, and create proposals to bring to the school board to bring the conversation to that level. There are some really exciting things at the board level.”

“High schoolers have a unique position in their community … we always hear that the youth of our world is the future, and if spoken well enough, has the best opportunity to be heard,” Freeman said, noting how adaptable environmental science is as a career field. “There are so many opportunities to make an impact, but also get paid doing it.”

Looking forward, all three students plan to continue working with the environment or sustainability after graduating high school.

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