Can you define biodiversity? Can you identify native and non-native plants on school grounds? Can you name more than 3 endangered animals? If you answered no to any of these questions and want to learn more about issues relating to climate change, the new club一the Nisky Climate Warriors一gives you the opportunity to do so.

With their goal of making the school more eco-friendly, the Nisky Climate Warriors plan on taking more action to combat climate change. Through the club, our school will be eligible for the Eco Schools USA program, which provides schools with steps to achieve different awards. By choosing different pathways of sustainability, new opportunities can be created for the school to join in the fight against climate change. 

Eco Schools USA can help motivate our school and students to do more. By enrolling Niskayuna High School into this program, we can now work toward achieving goals with the environment and actually get rewarded by the program, as it would make the school more eco-friendly. There are more than 5,000 schools in this program, including Niskayuna.

The Climate Warriors will choose to follow a different pathway that would help focus on improving the school. By encouraging all to question and reflect upon the school’s actions that would impact the environment, such a process would do just that. Such questions would include: do you think the school composts most lunches? Do you think teachers should use daylight instead of classroom lights when possible? Do you have any ideas of healthier foods that can be put in the vending machines? 

If you have any ideas about these various subjects, the Climate Warriors provide an open space to share your ideas. Notably, this is only one of the various pathways that our school can pursue. There are many different options available to students, and you can have a voice in what pathway our school focuses on!

Club Meeting Information:

The club’s meetings are only on Fridays at the Nott Street library. The club meets for only an hour and offers you a welcoming place to speak up about your ideas. It is not a big commitment and allows you to earn volunteer hours as well. Consider coming to the meetings every Friday! 

What do you think? What aspects of the school can be improved upon to help fight climate change? Any ideas, regardless of their size, can contribute to the effort. Our school is a great place for change to be made and small steps to be transformed into bigger ones. All throughout the school, we have clubs making such differences, like the Recycling Club, UNICEF, Animal Welfare, etc. The Nisky Climate Warriors is another club out of the several at Nisky where students can spark change. As Simran Utturkar, president of Nisky Climate Warriors, said, “In this club, we hope to develop initiatives to make our school more sustainable.” 

Club Goal:  The Nisky Climate Warriors aim to make the school more eco-friendly, focusing on goals around conservation, climate change, etc. The goals they are currently working on center around consumption and waste. They believe that any help, even the smallest amount, makes a big difference. Please consider joining!