I could write a book (and still might) about my high school Environmental Club and the long-term effect it had on my life. I honestly don’t remember how I heard about it or started going to club meetings. As a high school sophomore I cared vaguely about things like the environment, recycling, and the like. But it may be that I saw it on a list of extracurricular activities and chose it because I needed something on my college application other than 1 year in marching band. It probably didn’t hurt that there were a few cute Seniors who learned my name when I showed up to the first meeting, either.
For whatever reason, I showed up and I kept showing up every Tuesday after that.
Environmental Club was run by Mr. Tomey.
He was an enthusiastic high school science teacher who smiled too much and blinked too little. He made direct eye contact with his students, asked them critical questions, and vocalized his own strong opinions. In short, he was teenage kryptonite.
A lot of my peers treated him as such, but I dare you to find a former member of his Environmental Club who won’t tell you he was a great teacher or even that he changed their life. Not only was Mr. Tomey’s enthusiasm contagious, but he made nature…well, fun. It sounds corny to put it that way. I’m sure High School Me would agree. But it’s true, and I’m only now realizing how big of a feat that is.
Just think about that: A teacher MADE SCIENCE FUN even for teens like me who hated science class.
Even in college, I had to take a summer course at the community college and focus all my energy into studying for that one class in order to pass the Chemistry pre-requisite. In high school, science was the one non-honors class I had, and even then I struggled.
Meanwhile, Mr. Tomey created a club where there were no grades to scare you away from exploring science. He created an interactive space (which I’m almost positive was completely funded from his own pocket) with live animals, nature displays, and binders of photographs from past nature trips that you could explore at your leisure. He organized field trips in our neighborhood and around America for kids to get out into nature, have adventures, and make friends.
Of course, “trips” were the defining element of Environmental Club.
I’ve always loved traveling, and in high school, the majority of my life goals had something to do with going to new places. My family went on vacations throughout my childhood, but there’s something to be said for traveling without your parents and with a ton of your friends. There was a loose structure to Environmental Club field trips, but they didn’t fall into the school trap of forcing it to be “educational”. Instead, we were given free reign to run around, climb trees, ask questions, and just witness nature.
Unlike the Pacific Northwest, St. Louis kids were not inherently expected to participate in hiking, kayaking, or other outdoor activities. But you can’t be expected to care about The Environment with a capital E if you aren’t exposed to nature. Mr. Tomey also took extra care to include those who are often excluded from the environmental movement, such as people with disabilities or students who couldn’t normally afford big trips. I can attest to this latter example because I once lied to Mr. Tomey about my financial standing. I was too nervous to ask my parents for permission to go on a 10 day trip to the Smoky Mountains, so I claimed my family couldn’t afford it. Mr. Tomey gave me the support and fundraising tools I claimed to need in order to attend…which I promptly abandoned and asked my parents for permission. (Spoiler alert: I was allowed to go, and they paid for it. “Spoiled” doesn’t begin to cover it.)
In writing this blog, I went into the depths of my Facebook account looking for photos from these trips. It’s no surprise that the majority of my high school albums are dedicated to those adventures. Here are some of my favorites (please forgive me if you appear in one of them. High school is a wonderfully awkward time for everyone):
I’m sorry to say that I stopped going to Environmental Club after the Smoky Mountains trip.
I’d experienced my first heartbreak with one of the members and my little puberty brain couldn’t handle the drama of going anywhere near the memory. Instead, I went on to explore other interests like being in the school play, volunteering at a cancer non-profit, and participating in the Costa Rica foreign exchange program. And yet, the first thing that jumps to mind when reminiscing about high school is my wild adventures in Environmental Club.
A lot of people ask me how I decided to go zero waste.
I try to simplify my answer as much as possible. The truth is that the more I look into the roots of my zero waste lifestyle, the more I realize I can’t simplify it without lying by omission. It’s the culmination of my life’s experiences. However, I can tell you that my high school Environmental Club was a major factor.
Community isn’t something that I’d given a lot of thought about until I left home 3 years ago, but since I moved away I’ve come to appreciate the active effort necessary to create a community, especially around ideas. I spend a lot of time talking about what a person can do on their own because I write what I know. I’m not an environmental scientist or a politician, just a small business owner with a passion for saving the environment and preventing climate change. I came from a part of the country that usually didn’t worry about those things, so acting as an individual was all I knew before I joined Environmental Club.
Thank God for people like Mr. Tomey who put that much effort into creating a community for young people.
And another Amen for cultivating an interest in science among young girls. While a healthy 70% of his Environmental Studies class was made up of boys; the majority of Environmental Club members were girls. Some of us went on to make natural science part of our careers, others like myself continued to explore it as a passion outside of work.
Mr. Tomey died in December of 2017. It hurts that I never vocalized to him how important his club was in shaping me into the person I am today, but I suspect that fostering a love of science and the environment in students was the reason he did what he did. I can only try to pay it forward.
I want to ask everyone reading this blog to do something for me. Reach out to someone in your life who either gave you a community that changed you or is currently working to provide that community to young people today. They’re so essential to raising citizens who will help save the planet, and help save us from ourselves, and tomorrow they may not be around to thank.