Local students say it's easy - and cool - to be green

September 8-9, 2007
by Anna Marden

Although she was half a world away, the 1986 explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Chernobyl, Russia, changed Florence resident Peggy MacLeod's life. Her brother was in Russia at the time, very near the site of the accident. And, though he wasn't injured, he did test positive for radiation. MacLeod says she was so shaken by the disaster that it changed the course of her career.

Back then, MacLeod worked in an insurance office but soon after the accident she signed on to volunteer for an organization that promoted clean energy. Now, two decades later, MacLeod is the marketing director for green building at the Center for Ecological Technology, a nonprofit organization based in Northampton - a job she has held for nearly five years.

Of course, motivation to protect the Earth doesn't have to be as dramatic as a nuclear meltdown. For many, it's the little things that get their attention: A monstrous garbage heap, a package of recycled toilet paper and even a performance of a play based on a story by Dr. Seuss have all served to motivate some local high school and college students to join in the global effort to help save the environment.

In fact, says 16-year-old Sasha Mastroianni, a junior at Amherst Regional High School, it's especially important for young people, like herself, to take action to help out the environment because they are the ones who will inherit the Earth - no matter what condition it's in.

"It will affect us more than people in older generations," she said. "We're going to be living here longer."

Fortunately, she adds, there are some very simple things that young people can do to help. This summer, for example, Mastroianni watered trees.

On a recent Thursday morning, Mastroianni rode her bike to Amherst High School where three young maple trees needed attention. Entering through a side door of the school, she borrowed a 5-gallon industrial bucket from the custodian's office and filled it with water. Carrying it cautiously across a street and up a hill, she emptied the bucket at the base of the trees. It's a ritual Mastroianni repeated at least a half-dozen times this summer.

Mastroianni says she inherited her concern for the environment from her parents. Her family, she says, has always made simple efforts to be green-friendly - using products made by the Seventh Generation Inc., for example. Based in Burlington, Vt., the company makes non-toxic and environmentally friendly household items.

"When I was younger I remember always seeing a quote that is on [Seventh Generation] toilet paper packaging that says, 'In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations' - From the Great Law of The Iroquois Confederacy.' "While Mastroianni calls the quote, "just a little something," she says it illustrates why she decided early on to commit herself to environmental issues like global warming and pollution - goals she meets in part as a member of the ARHS Environmental Action Club.

Club members work to make changes at school and in the community, Mastroianni says. Last school year those efforts included:

• A school-wide showcase on garbage-sorting called Garbology 101. "We did this because we wanted to see how effective composting was at school. We dumped out compost and trash and sorted it, to see how much trash was put in compost, and we weighed it. There was a substantial amount of compost in the trash and a lot of plastic forks and trays in the compost," Mastroianni said.
• A campaign to get Amherst residents to join the New England Wind Fund, a program run by the Mass Energy Consumers Alliance that harnesses sources of clean and efficient energy in the New England states. "If we got enough people to do it, the town gets money to spend on energy conservation," Mastroianni said. To do that, members put messages in the daily announcements at school and set up tables with information pamphlets during performances at the school and at lunch. The club also had a booth at the Hitchcock Center in Amherst during an environmental event, Mastroianni says.

"The deadline was extended for donations but we did reach [our goal]. Most people I talked to about the New England Wind Fund were interested and very receptive," Mastroianni said.

• Fundraising to help pay for solar panels that will be installed at ARHS
• A campaign to get recycling stations set up at Amherst parks
• Trash pickup along the Connecticut River
• After a showing of a shortened version of "An Inconvenient Truth," compiled by ARHS audio video teacher, Lee Larcheveque, at a school assembly, the club sponsored a panel discussion with local environmental activists.

Northampton High School has a similar club, dedicated to energy conservation and a healthy planet.

Cathy Wanat, a biology and environmental science teacher runs the school's five-year-old Environmental Club. Like the EAC in Amherst, the NHS club takes on a number of projects each year. Past activities have included:

• Selling fluorescent light bulbs
• Sponsoring an Earth Day assembly at the school
• Organizing carpooling within the student body

The club has participated twice in an Envirathon, an environmental education program and competition for high school students

This year, Wanat says, she hopes to get students involved in Bag Share, a program through which people in the community make reusable bags for groceries that can be shared by shoppers. The bags that are made of a variety of durable materials feature tags bearing a store's name so people are reminded to bring them back to the store so others can use them as well.

Emily Silver, a 2004 graduate of Northampton High School, was a member of the EC during her senior year. Like Mastroianni, Silver grew up acutely aware of ecological issues, she says - as a child, she often visited a recycling plant where her mother worked.

"The visuals of the piles of waste that people produce on a daily basis made a really big impact on me," Silver said.

Now a senior at Brandeis University in Waltham, Silver had intended to major in music in college. But motivated, in part, by the work she did with the Environmental Club in high school, Silver decided to add a second major - environmental studies - and now devotes much of her time to learning about issues like solid waste management and energy conservation.

Like Silver, ARHS alumnus Alex Krogh-Grabbe of Amherst is devoting part of his college career to learning about environmental issues. After seeing a play based on Dr. Seuss' "The Lora"x - the story of the near-extinction of Seuss' fictional Truffula Trees - Krogh-Grabbe says he was also inspired to take action. Now a senior at Connecticut College in New London, Conn., Krogh-Grabbe worked with MacLeod this summer as an intern at the Center for Ecological Technology, learning about green building - developing construction that meets certain standards of energy efficiency - and energy-efficient living. MacLeod says with opportunities for "green collar" jobs on the rise, more and more college students, like Silver and Krogh-Grabbe, are opting for college majors that focus on environmental causes.

"It's an urgent issue for many young people," MacLeod said. Even young Hollywood stars and other celebrities are coming out publicly in support of energy efficiency - driving hybrid cars and developing films that promote awareness of environmental issues. A case in point, she says, is film actor Leonardo DiCaprio's recent film, "The 11th Hour," that addresses environmental concerns and suggests solutions.

"(DiCaprio) is using his fame to get people to pay attention," MacLeod said. "It's getting cooler to be green."