Chemistry teacher Josh Geldersma is the advisor for the Green Club, and he has a vision of what the club could become in the future, but first, he needs it to grow.

Geldersma has been running the Green Club for a year now but has yet to see many students. His past few meetings have seen no students, but he believes once he gains a few members, it will proliferate after they realize how enjoyable the club can be.

   “My hope is that the Green Club becomes a staple here that is essentially the start of the change of our community for a better environment,” said Geldersma.

   Green Club was started with the idea of helping fight climate change. Geldersma’s primary focus is to make the school a more sustainable and environmentally conscious student body, facility, and community by doing public cleanups. But more importantly, to transition the students to be more hard-working and to learn to enjoy the process of learning.

   Geldersma suspects the biggest culprits of pollution at the school would be students not recycling, flushing the toilets without using them, the use of excess lighting, and all the styrofoam trays with wasted food.

  “I think the things we do now as a community are not great when it comes to plastics. We are using single-use plastics and just dumping them,” said Geldersma. “I see so much of the student body buying monsters, and they just throw the cans in the trash, not knowing they are recyclable.”

   Geldersma believes it would be very beneficial to understand the idea of overconsumption and its repercussions. Geldersma thinks that the Green Club would tremendously help America get over the idea of overconsuming. 

   “Even if it does crash and burn, it was still worth it,” said Geldersma. “I will never regret the start of Green Club, and if we want to sustain this planet, we will need to move forward in a more sustainable way.” 

   In the future, he wants to make small changes over an extended period of time so that people will not complain or worry too much.

   So far, the Green Club plans to do their clean-ups around the school and, after that, at the elementary schools. Maybe even to some parks around Rives Junction.

Geldersma said Green Club would be willing to take suggestions for places that need to be cleaned up as well. With this, we can take steps to a greener Northwest.