By Joanna Marrufo, Field Correspondent and senior at Mountain View High School (soon to be attending UC Berkeley!)

“We are going to need newspaper, cardboard boxes, bubble wrap, plastic bottles, aluminum cans, sticky notes and lots of tape. Dressing up our teachers as recyclable clothes models will not be easy,”  I said to the Green Club during our meeting in March of 2011 in preparation for our second ever Earth Week. Our goal during this week was to promote ways to reduce waste, reuse items, and recycle material by creating a series of events for students and faculty at Mountain View High School in El Monte, CA.

I am one of the founders and current President of the first ever Green Club Mountain View High School has had, and am thrilled to say that it is one of the highlights of my high school career and I feel proud of all the Green Club has achieved.

My teammates and I attended an ACE Leadership Training in April, but it wasn’t the first training I’d benefited from. I also learned great skills at the California Association of Student Councils sponsored Youth Action Summit. After attending this conference, I brought back the blue prints for what would become Earth Week at my high school.

When I shared my ideas with the club, the enthusiasm created an astounding ripple effect of anticipation and participation across my school. Wood shop students (ROP), student volunteers, teachers, maintenance, and other staff all played a role in making this event possible. With the ACE Grant that we were awarded after training, we were able to get creative about Earth Week!

We decided to have fun lunch activities open to the whole school, free environmental give-a-ways and we began publicizing our event by making posters made out of newspaper so that our message of environmental activism was displayed within the paper itself. Students taking wood shop on campus helped our Green Club by making an  “Earth Week” sign.  Green ribbons were also distributed to all faculty and staff so that they could be worn in support for our campus’ Earth Week. And even the morning announcements gave facts and statistics about the importance of the three R’s as the week progressed.

The first event was a competitive plastic bottle toss to promote recycling in our blue recycling bins on campus. A finger painting contest for the best painted tree was our second event as we emphasized reducing our paper consumption. We put stickers on all paper towel dispensers and copy machines that said, “These come from trees” to remind the campus of conservation and reducing paper waste to preserve carbon sinks. The third activity was designed to be fun, energetic, and very messy. It was an obstacle course that had several stations involving recycling cans, hoola hooping, trying on reused clothes, and eating whipped cream.

Our final event was the Reusable and Recyclable Clothes Fashion Show which took place on Earth Day, April 22^nd. The Fashion Show was held during lunch was the largest and most creative of all the events that took place for Earth Week.

We started by having student models wear restyled outfits, designed by Green Club students themselves, that where accumulated from donated clothes and accessories from both teachers and students. This aspect of the fashion show emphasized the amazing results of simply reusing clothes and getting creative with what one already owns. Our favorite teachers who dared to wear outfits of recyclable materials were our other models for our show. Student volunteers used their imagination and personal “eco-vision” to pull off phenomenal outfits that grabbed everyone’s attention. Students on campus thought the entire event was inspirational and motivating and really entertaining!

What makes me most proud about the series of activities that occurred in celebration of Earth Day was that we benefited the Mountain View High School community. Green Club’s Earth Week involved everyone on campus – we worked together, gathered their resources, shared ideas, and aimed for the same goal of environmental awareness and we did it!