Lakeridge High School Updates & Goals for 2022
By Mia Mickelsen
The Lakeridge Green Team remains hard at work continuing to promote environmentalism, stewardship, and sustainability on Lakeridge’s campus and beyond! One of Green Team’s primary goals this year is to increase environmental awareness amongst the LHS community. To promote green habits and educate our peers on matters of sustainability, the Lakeridge Green Team has continued writing the “Sustainability Newsletter” we mentioned in our last update, which is published in Lakeridge’s weekly Pacer E-News. Each newsletter includes an “In the News” section, which shares information on local or national current events that pertain to the environment, a “How You Can Help Segment” that calls readers to take a specific action supporting our club efforts or the Green movement in general, and a “Green Team Tip” encouraging readers to adopt a small sustainable habit. Furthermore, our club continues to hold ivy-pulls, working to remove invasive plant life in order to preserve our campus’s native trees and rich ecosystem.
Currently, with the help of the Lake Oswego Schools District’s Sustainability Teacher on Special Assignment, Larry Zurcher, Green Team is working to renew Lakeridge’s Oregon Green School Certification. As a certified Oregon Green School, Lakeridge is an institution that developed and has implemented an effective, student-involved waste reduction and resource conservation program. To maintain this certification status and our school’s green efforts, our club will be conducting a waste audit and then using our findings to update and improve Lakeridge’s current waste management systems.
Future projects we hope to tackle as a group this school year include increasing the number of recycling and compost bins present on Lakeridge’s campus, supporting the city’s stewardship events and park clean-ups, connecting our members with civic sustainability advocacy opportunities, and, of course, holding our annual spring Eco-Challenge.
LOHS High School Updates and Goals for 2022
By Grace Wollmuth
Over the last few years, the Green Team has been working with the Oswego Lake Watershed Council to help restore the Lake Oswego Highschool campus by pulling ivy and planting native plants. We plan on having more events in the upcoming months and potentially expanding to more areas in Lake Oswego.
Alongside our restoration efforts, we are developing our outdoor areas in the land around the school. We are working with the sustainability TOSA, Larry Zurcher, and the school district to make plans for the land around the school. The goal is to create a space to provide career technical education experiences, especially in the classes relating to agriculture and the environment. The space will include an outdoor classroom, raised garden beds, pathways, benches, and a solar panel flower to power the area. It could be an asset for the community as it allows for future development.
Originally, the plan was to cut down 77 trees, however, it has been adapted to protect mature trees. Now, under 20 mature trees will be cut down and to combat the loss, 34 trees and 477 shrubs will be added to the property. We are currently looking for ways to utilize the wood from the trees cut down for other projects.
Through ivy pulls with the Oswego Lake Watershed Council and the development of the land behind the school, we hope to achieve Green School Certification for our gardens and grounds. As we continue to work on these projects, we want to develop our environmental vision for our school and create a green school action plan to become a school that creates clean, healthy, protective, and green campus, while saving energy and environmental resources