Taking initiative after observing students litter facilities after school events, Green Club, HSSC and the Global Issues Network (GIN) have decided to collaborate in hopes of decreasing the amount of littering on school campus. As Green Club and GIN are focusing on environmentalism, they will be submitting proposals to the administration to begin green awareness campaigns. The HSSC will help both clubs mainly for promotional purposes.
According to Yanis Park (11), Green Club president, this anti-littering campaign is the first of various initiatives that the club plans to engage in and lead this year. The club also aims to further expand this project to the Bokjeong community by picking up litter along the Tancheon River.
“We strongly believe it is not the responsibility of the cleaning staff to look after us,” Yanis said. “As maturing students, we should learn to become more responsible for ourselves. For now, [Green Club] is working with the HSSC to increase awareness but we are constantly brainstorming ideas to set concrete plans in motion and hope to further propel this cause.”
One of the reasons that the HSSC has decided to support this project was that student littering has posed a major problem during large-scale HSSC events. Due to such issues, it became more difficult for the administration to trust the council and approve their event proposals. To reduce the amount of litter and possibly organize more events, the HSSC has chosen to work with both clubs.
“As representatives of the school, we want to keep the school clean,” said Eunice Kang (12), HSSC Executive Public Relations officer. “HSSC will definitely benefit from [promoting] this campaign, because if students display changes in their behavior at school, then it will be easier for us to propose more events and open up more facilities to students.”
According to Jarret Lambie, high school principal, the administration is supporting the environmental effort of these clubs because of its emphasis on student initiative and responsibility.
“Building a student culture is not just about authority figures telling [the students] what to do,” Mr. Lambie said. “That is certainly the easiest method, but it is not the most effective. Students in the culture need to agree to the norms [that are set], so any student initiative as positive as this can be far more powerful than any rules that are laid out by the administration.”