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WINTER PARK HIGH SCHOOL'S INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE STUDENT NEWSPAPER
ECO Club Check-In
By Ashton Corddry
If you’re anything like me, you’ve heard lots about ECO Club in the past two school years. ECO (Environmental Conservation Organization) Club is a student-led group that works to raise awareness and create environmental change at WPHS. As a matter of fact, ECO Club was founded just last year, and since then the club has made great bounds in making WPHS a greener place. They have replaced all the outdoor lights that brighten your walk into school in the mornings with LED lights, reducing the amount of power used, as well as the amount of greenhouse gases produced making this power. ECO Club also provides a wonderful opportunity for students to gain some service hours while they’re saving the planet.
ECO Club Vice President MaeEllen Megginson says that “with so many projects on the horizon, there is a place for everyone to advocate for sustainability in an area they are passionate about.” MaeEllen also described a county-wide initiative that OCPS launched to make all the schools in the district more eco-friendly. It’s called the OCPS Student Sustainability Advisory Council, where students from a conglomerate of OCPS schools meet and discuss different ways to preserve our precious planet. As with any club, or really any function outside of the home, COVID-19 has restricted the ECO Club. The meetings are all virtual this year, and many of the in-person projects (like a beach cleanup) could not come to fruition. However, this can only bode well for future members and their experiences as current members work to plan for the future. ECO Club is doing a small yet mighty service to one of the few things we cannot live without: a planet to live and breathe on. Scientists don’t know exactly how long we have left until we have put the Earth into an irreversible position, but the time is definitely coming.
The members of ECO Club are doing their part to set the world on a much better path for future generations. I don’t know about anyone else, but I quite like breathing air. This isn’t to say upend your lifestyle completely, but recycle when you can and help the ECO Club in their mission. In the end, ECO Club has made astounding progress in just two years and is a fantastic club on the rise that is eager for more members!