The bell rings. It is the end of the day and it is time for after school activities to start. Some students head outside for their spring sports and others head over to the auditorium for after school band, but eleven students at Milford High School go elsewhere. These students make their way to A-59, Mr. Molanari Jr.’s room. Students take their seats and soon enough they start discussing ways on improving the school and community to make it more eco-friendly.
The new group, ACE, (alliance for climate education), formed not to long ago at Milford High School. ACE is a nation-wide organization whose “purpose is to educate high school students about how bad climate change is and to inspire them to make a difference.”
The organization was first started by Mr. Julian Rodriguez- Drix, an ACE spokesman, and now his organization has spread to states like Texas, California, and New England.
Club President, Connor Rosenblatt has always been interested in helping the environment. “…I feel that climate change is very serious issue, and something needs to be done about it… I want to make a difference in helping the cause of fighting climate change,” says Rosenblatt.
The club may have only started about a month ago, but they have already made efforts to better the school.. “The first idea we’re working on is getting bottle recycling bins in every classroom. So many kids bring bottles into school, and if there are no recycling bins, they just throw it in the trash. By having recycling bins in all rooms, significantly less bottles would be thrown in the trash, and wasted,” said Rosenblatt.
Even though recycling bins in classrooms may seem like a small project, ACE has many more ideas that are ready to be put into action. “In a year or two hopefully we can launch a couple of large scale projects that get the whole town involved,” said Rosenblatt.
ACE doesn’t just focus on informing high school students of climate change, but people as well. “Occasionally ACE focuses on high school students, but we do speak to middle schools and college audiences,” says Alan Palm, Lead Educator for the northeastern region. Palm is responsible for coordinating presentations at schools and leadership training for students and people of New England, New York, and New Jersey.
Before this group has formed, Palm and Rosenblatt were involved in other activities to help better the enviornment. Palm had started his own non-profit organization called “BioTour.” “BioTour traveled around the United States on school buses running on recycled cooking grease and solar energy. We ran educational programs at school and helped to throw events by doing things like powering bands with solar energy…” stated Palm. Rosenblatt has also done projects in the past, “…I started up an Environmental Science Club. We didn’t do much though. The only notable thing I remember doing was cleaning up the marshland near the Woodland soccer field,” Rosenblatt stated.
After Milford High School’s new club launches off, the students hope to spread their message farther, “We’re hoping that far down the line, it expands to the community. If the recycling really takes off, then we might try to implement it into the elementary/middle schools. When asked if he thought students could change more than their schools, Palm was not hesitant to answer. “Yes. There is no limit to the influence that students of Massachusetts can have if we work together to lower our emission and raise of voices!”
Although the club has only worked on smaller projects and are not well known yet, with a little sweat and elbow grease, we can make the environment safe for the future to come.