This is a guest post from Wilson Harris, ACE leadership training attendee and a Green Team member at Hughes High School in Cincinnati, Ohio.

We’ve all heard about how our forests are being cut down and how global warming is affecting Antarctica, but have you actually thought about how it affects us right where we are? How it is affecting our everyday lives? How could you even stop it if you wanted to? I have thought about it, but I’m just a regular 16 year old that knows as much as the next teen. That’s until I joined the Green Team at my high school and attended an ACE (Alliance for Climate Education) leadership training at the Civic Garden Center of Greater Cincinnati.

Why in the world would I want to get up on a Saturday morning to go to a seminar about recycling and the environment? The answer is that I was tired of seeing others make change when I didn’t even know what the problems were or let alone how to make a difference. Even my brother the assistant captain of the Green Team was in on the act! With him being in the zoo academy at our school, it raised his awareness of how things like climate change and deforestation affect animals and the environment. I would come home and hear about all of their weekly projects and how they were making contributions to help such as recycling.

When I arrived at the leadership training, I thought that I was in the wrong place because there were students from other schools in my city that looked very serious about what they were discussing. My brother and I came in and sat down discreetly and tuned in. Then Kylie Johnson, the Ohio Educator in charge of this particular event asked us to introduce ourselves.  We told the group our names, what school we were from, and why we chose to be apart of the action at our school.

After I became adjusted I began to answer questions and voice my opinions on the material presented to us. We engaged in some group work where I met other students who were a lot like me. They were around my same age, they were social, and they were there to get answers to some of the same questions that I have had. Questions like, what are we as humans doing wrong? When did this issue become so important? What could I do? To my surprise, I found the answers to all of these questions and more. I admit going into this I was a little nervous, and I thought that it was going to be a lot more military-style, but it was really fun and informative at the same time.

The best part of the training for me was when we separated into five different groups and each had an item that we had to illustrate the life cycle of from start to finish. My group consisted of four people and we had an iPhone. Yes! This was an opportunity for me to share my passion… art! I served as the illustrator for the group, and the other members of the group did the various other jobs required to complete the task. When we finished our poster, I explained our thought process and how the life cycle of an iPhone works. I feel that we did a pretty good job too! We also watched a video called the “Story of Stuff,” which explained how our daily lives connect to the environment and how our behavior affects the planet. It was very clear and answered a lot of the questions that I had. Mission accomplished! Also the snacks were a bonus too! Now I had the information I needed to make a difference in my life and the environment. I learned what the problem was, what I need to do differently, and what has happened in the past so that I know not to make the same mistakes.

All in all I left very inspired and ready to do my part and educate my peers on what they can do too. That’s why I volunteered to write this blog. I feel that a lot of kids are just like me – good kids who want to make a difference but just don’t know how to get started. Joining my school’s Green Team was the doorway for me. See if there is an Action Team at your school or in your neighborhood and become inspired the way that I did. This problem is very real, but so are we!