April 22 is Earth Day. In honor of our environment, the ECHO offers sustainability knowledge and tips from around campus, featuring an interview with Marin Lissy, president of Eastainability.
As global warming continues to take a toll worldwide, the fight against climate change has become largely youth-centered. Since the most dire effects of rises in temperature and carbon dioxide levels are expected to manifest several decades into the future, young people will have to face the consequences of Earth’s warming climate. As a result, youth globally have risen to the challenge of addressing the crisis, often in place of adults and world leaders, making it their collective responsibility to promote the environment before it is too late.
At East, students are no strangers to this green movement—from sustainability proposals to waste disposal, high schoolers are an active part of the shift toward a more sustainable future. Senior Marin Lissy, president of Eastainability, has made it her mission to make East’s campus more environmentally friendly. Lamenting an abundance of litter, the club has made a purified campus one of its primary goals this spring by conducting trash pickups. In addition, the club continues to maintain and de-weed the pollinator garden near the track and football field with the help of the Bee Club and Monarch Butterfly Club.
“I’ve really enjoyed the process of spotting a specific problem on campus, and then trying to find a solution that incorporates all our available resources,” Lissy said. “For example, it’s been great working with other clubs dedicated to sustainability and seeing our collective output when all our passionate students and volunteers come together.”
In many ways, schools play an integral role in promoting sustainability and mitigating the effects of global warming. As one of eight schools in Duke Energy’s Solar in the Carolina Program, East is a leading school against climate change through the use of solar panels that provide renewable energy. As such, anyone who rides the bus may have noticed the presence of blue solar panels outside Quad A.
Moreover, CHCCS is a U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon District Awardee. Only 58 schools and 14 districts nationwide carry this honor, which recognizes schools’ efforts to promote the environment and environmental education, including prioritizing student and faculty well-being and reducing unnecessary spending, as well as providing real-world learning and civic engagement, such as introducing students to green career pathways.
Lissy believes that recycling should form a major part of schools’ efforts to create a more sustainable environment. While East plays an important role in facilitating recycling, particularly in the cafeteria, Lissy believes that there is room for improvement.
“I think we do better than most schools with recycling. It’s really difficult to ensure everything is done correctly with our high population of students, and the reality is even within a community, the amount of recycled material that actually ends up getting recycled is very small,” she said. “It can sometimes take a lot of effort to figure out what can be recycled. Oftentimes, we throw away things that could be recycled, and recycle things that should be thrown away. Recycling is definitely an area that we can try to educate ourselves about.”
As a solution to combating climate change, more robust environmental education has been suggested. Lissy believes broadly that adequate environmental education could be a powerful tool to address the crisis.
“I think there’s certain aspects [of the environment] that my classmates don’t know about. In general, people mostly learn about climate change through fear-mongering. We’re almost scared into believing all the catastrophic impacts of what could happen if we fail to take preventative measures. Otherwise, environmental education is very oversimplified, with slogans such as ‘save the turtles’ or ‘reduce, reuse, recycle,” she said.
From her experience as a former student in Earth science, Lissy feels that offerings at East could be improved to incorporate real-world learning that allows students to feel more involved and interact with actual issues.
“I think it would be helpful to have greater hands-on experience, such as composting that shows students how to practice sustainability. Most of the subject matter in Earth Science is more focused on a textbook, and it’s not necessarily appliance,” Lissy said. “I don’t think that it’s applicable for every student, and not every student is absorbing it. I certainly don’t want to make any generalizations—I think some students really take it to heart, but if we could implement our learning at school, that would be a better approach.”
Ultimately Lissy wants adults to realize that though students have taken an active lead in addressing the climate crisis, they carry equal responsibility and must also uphold their obligations to the environment and younger generations.
“I want adults to know that students have a role in this fight, but so do they because at the end of the day, this is all our planet,” she said. “I think it’s sometimes frustrating for us as the younger generation, because everything that adults are doing now is going to be passed on to us. It’s so important to support students that are passionate about the environment and want to create change, because that’s how it’s going to happen.”
Photo courtesy of Marin Lissy
