Green Team Student-Led Push for Campus Sustainability

As a child, senior Spencer Simon was encouraged to go on nature preserve walks and nature-themed summer camps. He “found safety and love for nature” in these experiences, Simon said.

Now, Simon has found a way to make a di erence with his love for nature: by helping lead an Upper School club, the Green Team.

e Green Team is a student-led environmental awareness club that is dedicated to nding ways to increase campus sustainability practices and protect the environment.

Simon sees the Green Team as lling an important function. Maintaining a healthy environment is key to “make sure the world is a better place for ourselves” and to “protect what we enjoy,” he said.

e team teaches students how to incorporate sustainable habits into their lives. ey work in tandem with the Sustainability Committee, a faculty-led group that advocates for environmental change on campus. is year, the club is led by Simon and senior Charlotte Purcell. Its faculty sponsors are Upper School English teacher Trey Colvin and Primer teacher Janice LaMendola, both of whom also serve on the faculty Sustainability Committee.

e Green Team meets once every couple of months. During club meetings, members listen to presentations on environmental awareness, brainstorm sustainability ideas and plan school events.

Proposals have included picking up trash around campus and organizing hikes.

“Our goal is to not only help sta on campus, but also clean up and show that we can make change,” Simon said.

Purcell says the Greenhill campus is a privilege and that “part of the Green Team is helping bring awareness to the fact that we have such a great campus.”

Club members say they would like to decrease Greenhill’s carbon footprint by reducing forms of waste and reminding students to be more environmentally conscious at home and school. Club members are also asking school administrators to nd ways to burn less carbon dioxide and “to build with greener materials.” e latter goal is already taking shape in the form of the new STEM + Innovation Center that is currently under construction. Much of the structure is being built with wood and sustainably cultivated supplies instead of rebar and reinforced concrete.

Additionally, the club is developing more information on environmental policy to increase student awareness, Simon said.

Similarly, the Sustainability Committee helped retro t the campus with LED lights to save electricity. Currently, they are working on reinforcing the rules of recycling and plastic education, especially with Lower School students.

“We need to reteach our rules about recycling here on campus,” said LaMendola. “During COVID it kind of went by the wayside, but we’re trying to get back into that.”

LaMendola says that along with recycling, the committee proposes changes in services or products used on campus.

Environmental sustainability is a campus-wide and intergenerational cause. LaMendola says that getting more Upper School students in the club would be ideal for increasing the Green Team’s in uence because “students listen to students.”

is latest student-led push towards being more environmentally conscious reminds Associate Head of School for Mission, Community, and Culture Tom Perryman ’81 of the “Save the Land” campaign Greenhill students started in the 1970s to preserve the campus.

“Young people are leading the way on environmental issues,” said Perryman. “If kids weren’t interested, I don’t know how much work would get done.”

Middle School science teacher Gretchen Pollom, who also serves on the faculty Sustainability Committee, says that campus-wide persistence and e ort is key for change.

“It’s important to have awareness in Lower School and then Upper School,” Pollom said. “We need to be doing a lot

ough the Green Team works on campus, members plan to grow the club and increase their o -campus outreach. For example, Simon would like to plan a tour of the nature preserve where he works parttime, and perhaps involve students in a plant restoration drive at the preserve.

Other possible activities include o -campus trash pick-ups and e orts to increase climate awareness, Simon said.

Initiatives like the Green Team instill in students “how to be respectful citizens of the world,” Perryman said. And in a world struggling with the e ects of climate change and unsustainable development practices, Perryman says the Green Team can help teach students to “become responsible stewards of natural resources.”