How school green clubs promote environmental impact

At Carlmont High School (CHS) in Belmont, a bright garden sits beside green metal benches and a shaded staircase. At lunch, students gather to take care of it or just sit beside it.

Maintained by CHS’ Green Team, the garden prioritizes growing vegetables and fruits, cultivating them with the hope of donating them to local food banks like the Second Harvest Food Bank. Incoming CHS Junior Miranda Wacker, president of CHS’ Green Team and member of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby San Mateo County Youth, said that the club intends to support both the school and local community.

Carlmont High School (CHS) Green Club members tend to their community garden.

The CHS Green Club is just one of many high school environmental clubs across the Bay Area that combine environmental concerns with human ones, addressing the needs of their unique localities. Depending on various factors, high school environmental clubs may focus on discussion, awareness campaigns, community service, creating green spaces, or direct political action.

Take the Washington High School (WHS) Climate Action Club in Fremont. 

“My involvement began after witnessing the rising climate anxiety in my community and realizing I could transform that worry into action by organizing student-led projects,” said incoming Senior Sarah Adkar, president of WHS Climate Action and youth director of Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action. She joined WHS Climate Action three years ago.

While CHS focuses on making use of green spaces through gardening and hiking, as well as providing space for discussion on climate issues, WHS focuses more on political change.

Washington High School Climate Action collecting oranges and potting plants at a club meeting event.

“Our main goals are to promote environmental awareness, push for sustainable changes on campus, and advocate for climate policy at the district level. We believe students can drive change from within schools and influence broader systems,” Adkar said.

In order to influence school policy, the WHS club runs sustainable fundraisers, workshops, awareness campaigns, and civic engagement projects like speaking at school board meetings or writing to city councilmembers.

Another school whose initiatives have involved school policy is San Mateo High School (SMHS), whose Green Team successfully pushed for the district to ban the sale of plastic bottles in school.

This campaign involved efforts from the SMHS Green Team, the San Mateo Union High School District Sustainability Committee, and other local youth. It led to the school district unanimously agreeing to the ban, an important step to reducing the district’s use of single-use plastics.

“It made me feel more confident in my organizing abilities and the power of a group coming together to make something happen,” said 18-year-old Violet Aloft, an incoming freshman at UC Berkeley and former president of the SMHS Green Team. Through the club, she helped promote a district petition for the ban.

Aloft got involved with climate activism because her childhood experiences in nature and around environmental activists caused her to value protecting the natural environment. With this passion, she was able to lead her club to address school- and district-level sustainability issues. 

Aside from the district-level plastic bottle sale ban campaign, the club worked to improve SMHS’ waste sorting and raise awareness of environmental issues. For example, they installed tri-bins, which are waste bins separated by trash, recycling, and compost; made awareness videos about littering; and held a pop-up thrift store to promote sustainability.

In these initiatives, they focused on addressing local issues and adapting to what their community wanted to see. For example, when creating anti-littering videos, they depicted “the connection to the annoying seagulls on campus” to encourage students to act, according to Aloft.

Similarly, the CHS Green Team has plans to work with other local groups on climate-related projects, addressing the needs of the San Mateo County community.

“We are working on a trash project with a school in Millbrae. We also want to do more general volunteer work like tree planting and collaborations with other clubs like Mission Marine, Key Club, and the Transportation Club,” Wacker said.

In working with and for their local communities, school environmental club members have been able to gain an understanding of advocacy at a greater scale and the potential of youth in the movement.

“My greatest takeaways have been the power of youth organizing, the importance of persistence in advocacy, and the beauty of building collective hope in the face of crisis,” Adkar said.

For WHS Climate Action, these values extend beyond their projects and into the basic setup of their club.

“Meetings are outside and interactive. We always begin with a check-in to build community, then move into garden updates and breakout discussions. We also rotate garden plants and leaders to encourage leadership across the board,” Adkar said.

CHS’ Green Team, meanwhile, has meetings focused more on discussions and lessons on climate issues, while project work occurs separately.

“While many clubs share similar goals, some stand out for their unique initiatives like native garden restoration or large-scale policy campaigns. Each school brings its own strength,” Adkar said.

As Wacker noted, many people “are interested in helping the climate, but so many don't know how to start or what to do.” 

One of the best ways to get started is to join or start a school green club, where real, personal impact is possible.