PEGA to Promote Climate Awareness

SHANNON LI
News Editor
On Feb. 9, a representative from the Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) visited AHS and formed a new group on campus called Planetary Enforced Green Awareness (PEGA).
ACE’s mission statement, according to its website www.acespace.org, is to “educate high school students on the science behind climate change and inspire them to take action to curb the causes of global warming.”
“We are working with ACE to prevent more global warming than there already is,” said sophomore Alex Padilla, who acts as an ambassador between PEGA and ACE.
ACE sponsors other schools across the nation by encouraging students to reduce and recycle. PEGA was started after ACE gave a presentation to Green Construction Academy members. PEGA holds its meetings in IT-2 on Thursdays during lunch.
“We’re trying to reduce the school’s carbon footprint. This is more of a student effort than administrative. We want to promote awareness that people should be concerned with the earth and they should know what happens to our trash,” said adviser Oscar Motta.
Among PEGA’s planned activities are a Lights Out Day on Apr. 22, which is Earth Day. PEGA is hoping that teachers will turn off their lights and unplug devices during classes.
“Our main goal is to get the school to get solar panels. Reducing paper waste is another goal of ours. We also want to go to individual classrooms and get teachers to recycle more,” said Motta. “There’s a lot of information gathering we have to do, like ‘where does trash go?’ and ‘what happens to the recycled paper we collect in boxes?’”
Despite the challenges PEGA faces, Motta is optimistic.
“We have to prove that what we’re doing will be a great benefit to the school,” said Motta. “It’s going to take a lot of effort.”