Environmental Club makes the environment a better place.

Getting dirty in a stream is what Environmental Club is best at. Most clubs just have the average meeting during Liberty Hour, but not Environmental Club. Environmental Club is knee deep and sometimes up to the waist serving the community.

“I feel like it is different than all of the other clubs at the high school,” junior Kaitlyn Baker said. “We’re more hands on and you can go outside and actually do things and get involved.”

So far Environmental Club has started the year off strong. The club is student led and they have already had many discussions about their ideas for service and are ready to have a year full of events.

“Last year we started to plan some things and they didn’t really happen because it got too cold and it started snowing,” Baker said. “I feel like this year we started out already planning the stream clean up and we already have events set that we’re doing, so we are getting a lot more accomplished.”

On October 8, the club went to do a stream clean up at Martha Lafite Nature Sanctuary in Liberty. Members aren’t actually cleaning the stream by picking up trash. That are taking large nets and collecting different organisms that live in the stream. Sometimes they catch fish and turtles, but they always put them back.

“We test[ed] how healthy the stream is by checking the bacteria that live in the stream, the pollutants and the types of organisms that live in there,” sophomore Claire Reedy said.

The students who are in Environmental Club were knee-deep, and sometimes even up to the waist, in a stream with large nets to gather species of organisms to study. The types of organisms that live in the stream and oxygen levels give clues to how healthy the stream is. Organisms are classified into different tiers based on the places they live. If an organism is in tier one, they need very clean water to live. If an organism is tier three, they can live in dirtier water.

After they record all the data from Martha Lafite Nature Sanctuary, the club sent all the data to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

“People have been going out to the stream for probably ten years before I was even here,” Biology Teacher Rick Knowles said. “So, we probably have about 20 or 25 years worth of data at Shoal Creek alone.”

Stream-cleaning is not the only fun large project the club has planned. The club takes a trip to the Omaha Zoo every year and has been thinking about going on a float trip or going camping. Members are always looking for ways to get involved with the environment.

“When I was your age, we would throw away trash. We didn’t even think about recycling,” Knowles said. “I think it is a great time to get involved in Environmental Club and to watch young people inherit the earth and take it in a new direction than the previous generations have taken it.”

The club has one main goal: make the community a better place for animals and humans. Every meeting they put in effort to help as much as they can.

“I really love the environment. I know that sounds cheesy but I really do,” Baker said. “I want more people to recycle because it makes me sad when I’m in the lunchroom and I see everyone throwing away their plastic stuff when I know it could be recycled.”

Environmental Club is a club for everyone. The club meets every Wednesday Liberty Hour A in room 209 and new members are always welcome. Whether you really love the environment or just want to get involved, there is a spot for everyone.

“I participate in the club because I think you can learn a lot from it because it is real-life stuff,” junior Megan Barksdale said. “I think I want to be a biologist and this is real-life experience that you can’t get in the classroom.”