In honor of Earth Day, April 22, the Christ Church High School Environmental Club dedicated a week to promote environmental awareness.

Earth Week kicked off on Tuesday with a “Lights Out Day,” in which all of the teachers and students were encouraged to turn off the lights for the entire school day. The goal was to save electricity and to enjoy learning in natural light. In order to calculate the amount of energy saved, members of the environmental clubs in each division took energy meter readings on a typical school day to use as a baseline comparison and compared those results to the meter readings on Lights Out Day. According to an Environmental Club announcement the following week, “the number of kilowatts saved per day equals 1724kW based on this year’s data. This is slightly less than last year’s daily kilowatt savings of 2088, but this may mean that on average the school is more efficient in our energy usage on a more regular basis. In terms of money saved by turning out our lights, we saved the school $150 in just one day.”

On Wednesday, the Environmental Club held its annual “No Sale Bake Sale.” Members of the club brought in baked goods to hand out to the student body free of charge. This event took place outside the cafeteria and allowed students to enjoy some fresh air as well as some tasty treats.

On Thursday the school was a sea green because each student and teacher was allowed to wear the green Christ Church Earth Day t-shirt. Also in the afternoon, members of the Environmental Club went tree-tagging around the school campus. A tree tag looks like a giant nutrition tag, but instead of listing nutrition facts, it lists the benefits of the specific tree. The tag lists the stormwater runoff reduction, Carbon reduction, electrical energy savings, property value impact, as well as the total monetary value of the tree based on its benefits to the environment per year. The Environmental Club tagged four trees around the school campus, and will continue to tag trees until the end of the school year to raise awareness about the benefits of trees.

The Environmental Clubs wants to thank everyone who helped to make Earth Week a huge success!