Every impact is an impact, no matter how small. A bunch of small impacts towards a cause can make one big contribution. Three years ago my friend and I joined Harry S. Truman’s Environmental Club. We started off by just walking around the school collecting recyclables since the school does not fund recycling. We did this for an accumulative volunteer time  of over thirty hours in our first year. We have also done much more since then. The Environmental Club had a fundraiser for solar panels for our school. We were selling sunflowers. My friend and I stayed after school for hours planting and tending to the plants until they were ready. This year we have raised enough money to finally purchase the solar panels.

Within the next few months the solar panels are being installed at our school. We will be cutting back considerably on our electricity intake, and we will become slightly more independent. However, other problems arise. The school is very wasteful.  They do not turn off lights when the school is closed, they run the heat in the winter with the front doors open, and they do not fund recycling. Overall the school wastes a ton of energy. Slowly, but surely, we have big plans to decrease our energy usage.

What is the big problem with wasting of energy in school? Buildings such as schools and other public buildings are a big contributor to the waste of energy that happens because of the mass amount of people going in and out of the buildings and our schools lack support for the conservation of energy. Energy is made a number of ways but a popular way is to burn fossil fuels. When you burn these fuels, greenhouse gases are emitted into the atmosphere. These gases trap heat into the atmosphere causing global warming.

As an Environmental Club we have been working to set up programs to help out the environment. We work with an organization in our area called G.O.A.L. or the Greenbelt Overhaul Alliance of Levittown, and we have done many projects with them. We have planted trees at our school, removed invasive vines, cleaned up streams and other areas, and just last year we built a memorial. Overall our impact is small considering that now the Environmental Club is mostly just my friend and I. However, an impact is an impact.