One big mystery for T1s is community service. “What is it? How do you get it done? Does walking your dog count?” Community service may sound simple and yet every T1 I spoke to was very confused.

So it was a pleasant surprise that my passion for the environment could be a part of community service.

I was a member of the Environment Club in middle school. Other club members and I spent many afternoons planting different species, making posters to raise awareness about environmental issues, as well as promoting the reduction and recycling of food waste in the cafeteria. Through these efforts, we got the opportunity to participate in the Youth Climate Summit 2018.  

The Summit was held from October 9th to 10th in the Catskills and attended by over 100 teenagers from 14 schools. This was the first time for UNIS to be present at the Summit. The main objective was to prepare students to be future leaders regarding climate issues.

The Summit was an intense learning experience. We learned about the causes of climate change and got practical training about how to promote sustainability in our homes, schools, and our communities.

The UNIS team participated in a workshop about solar energy. We built portable solar chargers for our phones and interacted with schools that use solar panels for all their energy needs. We would like to explore how this solar panel idea can be applied to UNIS.

The workshop on ‘How Mushrooms Can Save the World’ was eye-opening for us. We learned that different types of mushrooms can clean both the air and water by removing any toxic gasses or other substances. The mycelium in mushrooms is a natural way to clean the environment because it can decompose metals. Mushrooms have the potential to be a green project at UNIS: a mushroom patch planted on the roof can clean the air,  and we can harvest those mushrooms and use them to clean the part of East River near the school.

The UNIS team also made a poster display that summarized the work done at UNIS to reduce food waste and encourage recycling in the cafeteria. We presented the display to the several other schools, and they were very impressed.  

Interacting with other schools and learning about the sustainability initiatives that they have taken were two of the most interesting features of the Summit.

Climate change is a gigantic global challenge that can seem daunting to a lot of people. At the summit, we discussed how ‘everything counts, everyone can’ – how seemingly small steps, which each of us can take every day, can become a part of the solution to climate change.

In this spirit, all the participants had a session on crafting a Climate Action Plan, and the UNIS team came up with several ideas, including setting up a Tut House Green Team, starting an awareness campaign (e.g. on how toxic the plastic in disposable water bottles can be), and promoting clean energy at UNIS.

The many lectures, discussions, in-depth brainstorming sessions, and the workshops made this Summit an exhausting but rewarding community service experience.

But we are not done yet; we need everyone’s support to transform all our takeaways and ideas into reality and make our UNIS community more sustainable. Like I have suggested above, small things like recycling and composting can get us closer to address the enormous challenge known as climate change. So please support us and be part of the solution!