HERE’S THE DIRT
Climate challenge is engaging students in environmental future
“Food waste. It’s something inevitable that everyone, everywhere encounters, as we all eat. From transportation and processing, to retail and consumers, approximately 40 percent of food is wasted in the U.S.”
These are the first lines of my Climate Innovation Challenge “action plan” video. Starting in January, my sophomore biology class dove into learning about climate change indicators and impacts, along with mitigation and adaptation strategies, to choose an area of concern to focus on to help battle climate change. From there, we evaluated climate solutions, made a “climate action plan,” learned filmmaking techniques and set up interviews with experts to craft the final product: a video up to four minutes long outlining a way to reduce the severity of climate change or to adapt to it. This is why my school chose to participate in the challenge: It packs a plethora of consequential, relevant information into only a few months of engaging preparation.
Throughout my school career, it’s been challenging to find ways to bring what I’m learning home and to apply it concretely to real-world situations. Even with increased emphasis on project-based learning and labs, there seems to be a lack of easy opportunity for students to find clear paths to making change, in the environmental sphere or otherwise. My experience participating in the Climate Innovation Challenge felt customizable and student-led, making the path to change feel much more traversable. This makes me wonder, on the one hand, why our school curriculum doesn’t already have these pathways, but on the other hand, how collaboration between schools and outside organizations (such as with Climate Advocates Voces Unidas, the parent organization of the challenge) can successfully give students well-rounded opportunities and education.
The eventual topic of the video I made for the challenge started with a personal interest in the kitchen. I have always had a fascination with the origin of things — how lush plants spring from seeds, how Earth developed from gas and dust, how species have evolved — but what didn’t occur to me until years later was what’s at the far end of the cycle: death and detritus. In relation to food, that often means scraps such as moldy yogurt, carrot tops and uneaten leftovers being thrown away.
For a few years, my family has been collecting food scraps in buckets kept in our garage and taking them to Reunity Resources, a local farm and commercial composting facility on San Ysidro Crossing, every couple of weeks. I knew generally that this act reduces our carbon footprint, but my interest and knowledge really took off when I started researching composting for the Climate Innovation Challenge. Specifically, I discovered how the seemingly innocent act of tossing food scraps in the trash rather than composting them actually accounts for the single largest category of waste in municipal landfills in the United States. In relation to our climate, landfills are the third-largest source of methane emissions in the country. Researching for the challenge also led me to help my school join the many others in Santa Fe that are already composting. The facilities staff, administration and school community supported the initiative to allow for a composting program, which demonstrates how with curriculum, resources and opportunities, students can take something close to home and create meaningful change.
Participating in the Climate Innovation Challenge showed me that to break apart structural and environmental issues in your town, community or home, you don’t have to start with some entirely revolutionary or novel idea. What it boils down to is dipping your toes, even if it’s just a little bit, into something you’re passionate about and something you think is important. When combined with bold policy initiatives by our elected representatives, personal actions can set off a chain of events that will eventually lead to consequential change and a more sustainable climate.