Murie Center!

Students For Sustainability recently took a trip to the Murie Center in Moose, WY.
The club took 8 members, along with Faculty Advisor Alan Brumsted, to the Murie Center for a luncheon and meetup with Simon Jackson. After having a tour of the facities and learning the history and work of the center, we sat down to a lunch with Kate Gersh from the Murie Center and Simon Jackson. We discussed the club's past, present, and future projects, while gaining insite and advice from an experienced leader.
- Karli 

The Murie Center focuses on outreach and education to promote conservation. Their mission statement is, “The Murie Center, in partnership with Grand Teton National Park, engages people to understand and commit to the enduring value of conserving wildlife and wild places.” The center is in a unique position to conserve wildlife though giving life-changing experiences to people by giving them the opportunity to stay on their ranch. The Murie center also brings in speakers to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to give presentations about the importance if leadership and initiative. 
- Erin 

I met Simon Jackson for the first time at the Eco-fair the saturday before we had lunch with him. Shelley Simonton and Kate Gersh (Assistant director of the Murie Center) had mentioned to me that he was very amiable and couldn't be a more caring, kind hearted person, but that didn't stop me from being intimidated. I found out though, Kate and Shelley were right, my nerves were completely unwarranted. Simon Jackson, who is looked to internationally as a leader for youth leadership and conservation, has a personality that will put even the most nervous of high school students at ease. 

Simon Jackson's story starts when he was in middle school, only 13 years old. He heard about North America's rarest bear, the Kermode bear, which was in danger of habitat loss from human developments. He decided to have a lemonade stand. He had these lemonade stands all throughout the summer, until he had raised $60, which he sent to the government to "save the Kermode bear." Of course, he got a letter in the mail saying that he saved the bear, and went on happily. Then, he found out that of course, his $60 hadn't saved the bear and decided to create the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition. Since then, it has transformed to a six million member organization that has saved about two-thirds of the Kermode bear's habitat.

- Mackenzie 

CM = Club Member

Top row: CM Wilton, Simon Jackson, Kate Gersh (Muriel Center), CM Erin, Alan Brumsted (Factulty Advisor), CM Mackenzie

Bottom row: CMs Sara, Maddie, Karli, Kali, Anna

Check out the Murie Center! http://www.muriecenter.org/

Check our Simon Jackson and the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition! http://www.spiritbearyouth.org/?page_id=78

EcoFair!

Students for Sustainability worked this weekend at the local Jackson EcoFair, an annual event hosted by the Jackson Hole Energy Sustainability Project (JHESP). Our set up was working with the InterConnections21 booth, which is an organization that our club has worked very closely with in the past, and are currently working with on projects.

Not only was this an opportunity to get our club name out there, but to work with community members in order to educate, entertain and inform them about global issues and susatinable work.

This event was very successful and entertaining, and we are sure to participate in the years to come.

- Karli 

Check out the EcoFair!   http://www.jacksonecofair.org/

Bag giveaway!

Sfs member Sara headed a project we dubbed the "bag project". The original idea was to raise money to purchase reusable bags, to then giveaway at a local supermarket. 

After contacting multiple stores around town, she found that these stores were not able or willing to donate any bags, funds, or appropriate discounts due.

Though this was a setback, the project continued into the planning stages. 

She then found out, with the help of our faculty adviser Alan Brumsted, that there was already a project much like this taking place in Jackson in May. 

A donor provided 600 bags to the school district, which were sent to the K-12 art classes, decorated, and returned to him. He then picked a day (May 18) to give away at Whole Grocer to give away decorated bags.

Because the project idea was already in progress, we decided to work along with the donors on their project. Sfs members were there during the giveaway handing out bags, which were filled with handouts that Sara designed about the disadvantages of paper and plastic bag use. 

Sfs members Hailey, Sara and Karli

Sara 

One of 3 give away tables 

- Karli 

Green Schools!

Mr. Brumsted (faculty advisor) approached SFS officers one day about attending a Project Learning Tree (PLT) Greenworks Workshop.

 Attendance at this workshop would not only be an education experience but also offer an opportunity for grant funds on future projects. 

We pulled together a team and went up to the Teton Science School for the workshop. Don't worry, we didn't use an entire bus to transport a mere ___ students, instead, the school district allowed us to take a Suburban up. While a Suburban might not have the most efficient gas mileage, it is the most environmentally friendly way the school district would allow us to travel. 

PLT gave us many supplies, including light detectors, temperature readers, CO2 readers, and much more. In addition, we were given packets full of surveys and outlines of processes to complete various types of projects ranging from renewable energy system implementation to decreasing water consumption and increasing recycling. 

We were pleasantly surprised by the support PLT offered us, and the creative project ideas that stemmed from this workshop. This workshop led to two projects that have been completed or are in the process of completion. 

The first one, was completed on Saturday May 18th in the bag give away at Whole Grocer and was headed up by our newest, and youngest member Sara Van Hatten who attend the PLT conference. The other project that stemmed from this conference is one to implement new water bottle refilling stations into the high school. We will partner with the Recycling program, who has agreed to distribute reusable water bottle to every student in Jackson Hole High School. In addition, the lunch line has stopped selling plastic water bottles. This project is headed up by Vice President Elsa, who also attended the conference. 

We hope that through these two projects we will facilitate the use of reusable bags and water bottles, thereby reducing plastic entering the waste stream.

- Mackenzie 

It was a unique learning experience and it taught me how to reduce energy in easy ways.

- Erin 

The Green Schools conference that we attended opened my eyes to the little things that we can do in our school that are easy and will make a difference. 

- Sara 

WAM Conference

In January of 2013, Shelley Simonton (Executive Director of the Jackson Hole Energy Sustainability Project) asked Co-Presidents, Erin and MacKenzie (myself) to speak at the Wyoming Association of Municipalities Conference (WAM). We couldn’t have been more honored—or terrified for that matter.

 The first day we drove down to Cheyenne with Larry Pardee. On the morning of the second day we watched Reggie Rivers give his keynote speech as nerves twisted knots in our stomachs. Afterwards, Jackson’s Mayor Mark Barron began the presentation.

 Mayor Barron was followed by Shelley Simonton, I followed, and Erin concluded the presentation. Our brief presentation focused on the solar panel project completed during the previous summer and youth leadership. As it turned out, the nerves were all for nothing. After Erin concluded Jackson’s presentation, many audience members approached us thanking us for our leadership and determination.

Our trip came to an end after lunch with the Mayor, Bob Lenz, and various other elected officials of Jackson, and a tour of the Wyoming Capitol building. All in all, it was an experience that Erin and I will never forget.

-Mackenzie 

 

Solar: Phase 1!

As the plan to go solar marched on, regular monday meetings were held by the officers, including some outside sources, that became close-knit affiliations, such as Evan Huggings from Inter Connections 21 (IC21), and Shelly Simonton from the Jackson Hole Energy Sustainability Project (JHESP).

The major issue to overcome was funding - solar panels are expensive and we knew that. We decided to apply for a grant from JHESP to fund phase 1. To apply for such a large amount of money, we had to put in countless hours of research, writing and re-writing a business plans, talking to Shelly and Evan and other adults who were involved to have them check over our writing, and finally finalizing our plan.

When the day came to actually apply for the grant, it had been decided ask for $50,000, not to exceed $52,000. We showed up at the Town Hall prepped with grant copies in hand and anxious nerves, expecting to be sitting in on a very formal delegation meeting with powerful figures from our community. Once we were ushered into the meeting room, the nerves were mostly shaken off. The members were very friendly and inviting, wanting to know all about our club and our story.

Being highschoolers, often you can be looked down on by adults, or not taken seriously. This was a fear of ours, that the council would think we were making fools of ourselves and asking for something way out of our grasp. In contrast, they were impressed by our drive and motivation, and amazed at our ability to write a successful business plan being just sophomores in high school.

After giving a relatively short presentation of our plan, the council approved the funding unanimously. This shocked us to a point, we had prepared for an expected some intense questioning and doubt.

A huge burden was lifted from our shoulders. After working so hard all summer preparing for this day, we now had the funding to purchase and install the panels that would offset energy use of the lights and the scoreboard.

The story definitely does not end there, we then had to go through the whole process of actually installing and monitoring the panels. Luckily the school district, mainly Kevin Thibeault (TCSD Director of Facilities) took care of the bargaining, pricing, hiring, and payment of the workers and panels.

Our job from there was relatively simple, sit back, relax, and wait for the panels to start generating energy.

 

Here is a physics class viewing the instillation of the solar panels during class.

 

 

Here is the solar panels covered in snow in the deep Jackson winter.

 

Here are a few SFS members along with Shelly Simonton (JHESP), Evan Huggins (IC21), Mayor Mark Barron, Brian Tenabe (Lower Valley Energy), Dan Butcher (TCSD), and Larry Pardee (Lower Valley Energy).

-Karli 

Going Solar!

Straight off the bat from officer elections, the 4 of us decided to quickly take action to make a big difference in our school, and to get our name out there. After going back and forth with a few other project ideas, the idea came up to go solar.

Jackson has an incredibly low price for energy, a measly 5.8 cents per kilowatt hour, making solar projects relatively complicated if the goal is for the panels to fully pay themselves off. Knowing this, we decided not to go directly to our high school building or other schools in our county, but the more public lands that are used by the school. In the summer of 2012, the Teton County School District (TCSD) was updating and renovating the local football stadium. This included removing the old bathrooms and concession stand, which at the time was more like a concession shack, and replacing it with a new, updated, and consolidated building. 

Luckily, this new building had the design that accommodated solar panels perfectly! The roof was flat and south-facing, at a slight angle that allows for the most direct light to hit it. 

We decided that a good project would be to attempt to make a fully-solar-powered athletic field, including the energy consumed by the stadium lights, the scoreboards, and the concession stand itself. Because the concession stand was still being built during this time, we did not know how much energy that it would consume by itself, so we decided to break the project up into two phases. 

Phase 1:

         - Enough panels to balance out the energy consumed by the lights and score board, while monitoring concession stand energy use. 

Phase 2:
        - Add enough solar panels to offset energy consumption of the concession stand (based off of estimate from previous year of use)

     

-Karli 

Club History

Beginning as the Global Warming Hero League back in the year of 2006, a local Jackson middle school club aimed to provide a "greener tomorrow" to Jackson as well as Wyoming. 

When the students who began the club transferred to high school, the club name changed to the Alliance Against Climate Change. A small group of 5 students, the club retained their high goals. They traveled to Washington DC to present to many environmental organizations and the Wyoming senator, senator Enzy, about environmental change for the state of Wyoming. 

In the spring of 2012, AACC required a shift in leadership, with all 5 members graduating that month. New officers were elected:

Mackenzie - Co-president 

Erin  - Co-president 

Elsa - Co-vice president

Karli - Co-vice president, secretary, treasurer

The new officers changed the name of the club to Students For Sustainability (SFS) and quickly gained attention and members.