What’s Happening in the Sustainable Campus Committee?

The Sustainable Campus Committee is a Stewardship at Sequoyah high school with the goal of promoting sustainability and caring for our environment. GMC spoke to Sustainability Stewardship teacher James Roberts, committee chair Paula Hu ’25, and committee member Henson Jones ’25 to find out their visions for sustainability, what changes you’ll see around campus, and how you can help!

What is sustainability? 

Building a sustainable campus begins with defining just what is meant by “sustainable.” Sustainability is a word we hear often, but there are many definitions. Here are the definitions offered by members of the Stewardship.

Roberts suggested that sustainability means “using the resources that we have in an efficient way that is conscious of its impact on the environment.” Alternately, Jones offered, “anything that has a very closed-loop system so there’s very little input and very little output. Basically, a system where you don’t have to add a lot of energy and there’s not a lot of waste produced. Sustainability is really all about building a community that you can rely on.”

What is the sustainable campus committee doing this year? 

The committee’s main projects include installing, planting, and maintaining raised-bed garden boxes along with educating the students and faculty about the compost bin. The raised beds are being planned for the fenced-in area near the science lab. The plan is to build 3 garden boxes, each 5’ x 6’. Discussions of what to plant in the boxes are ongoing. Growing native plants throughout the campus would also be a great move towards supporting the local wildlife.

Hu hopes, “[they] could actually learn about our environment before we take any actions to protect it. I really hope that we can actually get something done. Sequoyah gives Sustainability a lot of space for us to make progress and make improvements.” 

The school already has a compost bin, but it is hard to find and looks a lot like a trash can. To make it work and produce quality compost, the Committee needs to educate the community about composting, what should go in the bin, and — just as importantly — what should not! The Committee thinks some clear signs would help. As Roberts says, “remind everyone at morning meeting not to throw trash in [the compost bin]. That would be a good start.”  

What can you do to help?  

Having a sustainable campus requires teamwork from the student body. The Stewardship committee offered some ideas for how students can contribute to the work of the Sustainable Campus Stewardship. Roberts suggested that students might share their ideas for the gardens or get involved with maintaining them. Hu expressed that the best thing students could do is to avoid causing harm to the campus. Jones summed up the situation, saying, “You can’t live a sustainable life without having a sustainable community.”

The Sustainable Campus Committee can’t work alone. Everyone at Sequoyah needs to be mindful of the world around them and consider their impact on the environment.