The tradition of producing environmentally-conscious—and award-winning—young people continues at Newberry High School.
Two teams of students at the school have won two first place awards in the Lexus Eco Challenge, a national competition sponsored by the Lexus automotive company and Scholastic, a national educational publishing company. Their first win was in the competition’s land and water category, the second was in the air and climate category. Those wins mean the school is now eligible to compete in the final overall challenge of the contest.
“We’re so proud of these students and their teacher, Cynthia Holland,” said principal Hershel Lyons. “They’ve made
Newberry High a national leader in environmental education.”
For the land and water category, a team of nine Newberry students planned and implemented a community reforestation project. That team was made up of Kristi Duncan, Naomi Daniels, Katie Pabst, Linda Buys, Cody Thomas, Tiffany O’Connell, Shelby Deen, Brian Skipper and Madison Karelas. The students had to raise enough money to purchase 1,500 seedlings, educate the community about the project and recruit local citizens to get the seedlings in the ground. They also worked with Newberry city leaders on a plan to have the city officially designated as a Tree City through the Arbor Day Foundation’s national Tree City USA program.
The students involved in the project say they are happy knowing that their work will have a significant impact on the future of the community.
“Thirty or forty years from now when those little seedlings are tall trees, we’ll know we’re the reason they’re there,” said O’Connell, a senior at Newberry High.
Promoting a ‘Green Christmas’ was the focus of the team working on the air and climate challenge. That team included Duncan, Daniels, Thomas, Pabst, Deen, O’Connell and Karelas and three new members, Alex Black, Brian Skipper and Courtney Ray. As part of their project, the students produced and sold reusable fabric bags to replace the traditional gift wrapping and boxes. They created ornaments out of pine cones and other natural materials rather than using store-bought, and used energy efficient LED lights for their holiday decorating. More importantly, they campaigned to encourage their fellow students and other citizens to do the same in their own homes.
“Ten kids can’t do it by themselves,” said Skipper, a senior. “It’s really important to get the community involved in helping us.”
While the students are all much more knowledgeable about environmental issues than they were, Holland says working on the projects has also helped them develop other important skills.
“They’ve learned to use new technologies, they’ve learned to organize, to communicate, to work as a team, to meet deadlines,” she said. “Those skills are invaluable.”
For each first place award in the contest, the school receives $2000 award, Holland receives a $1000 award and the students split $7000 in prize money. And while winning awards is gratifying, Holland says it’s not the ultimate goal of the projects.
“It’s about these students going on to become active in the community and learning how one person can make a positive change in the world,” she said.
“Our generation is going to have a big impact the environment,” said Daniels. “We have to know about it so we can fix what’s been going on.”