![Join WSPN’s Marissa Mendoza, Edge Wheeler, Ainsley Jay, Bowen Morrison and Sofia Ciciarelli as they cover seniors’ involvement in the election and the viewpoint from a WHS educator. “[The election is] a really toxic environment,” WHS history teacher Katherine Bassen said. “It would be disingenuous for me to say, ‘oh, everything's going great.’ Obviously it's not, right?”](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_0282-1-1200x800.jpg)
![The Boy Scouts will be selling trees on Fridays from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., Saturdays 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sundays noon to 6 p.m. until they sell out.
“This event is one of the things that [the Boy Scouts] get to have a direct impact on the community,” freshman Alex Macleod said.](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Screenshot-2024-12-11-at-8.38.38 AM.png)
As co-president of the Green Team and National Honors Society (NHS) activity leader, senior Sofia Simmons strives for creating an impact towards improving the environment. Simmons says she’s always viewed climate change as a booming controversy, and once she entered high school, she began to spread awareness.
This year, Simmons earned the title as the co-president of Green Team along with senior Tara Sawrikar. Green Team advocates for several issues surrounding climate change all around the high school.
“The green team composts, and hosts trash-cleanups where the club goes around the school and cleans up trash around campus,” Simmons said.
Specifically, Simmons makes the compost posters in addition to setting up various other activities for the Green Team to participate in. However, beyond in-school tasks, the Green Team took its commitment to the environment advocacy and sustainability to an entirely new level.
“We are in the Massachusetts Youth Climate Coalition (MYCC) which is an organization full of student-run clubs that advocate for climate change,” Simmons said. “We lobbied at the state house, when there were climate change bills or environment-friendly bills trying to get passed. A group of us went to the state house and talked to people who passed those bills.”
The Green Team had to prepare in advance for the MYCC event in order to be successful. The students who attended have to join the MYCC’s virtual training on the priority bills and the basics on how to lobby prior to the event.
“You get trained on how to lobby and then the next day there is an in-person rally and legislator meetings at the MA state house.” Simmons said.
Simmons, along with the other Green Team members, takes the club seriously in order to see progress and change come to action. Additionally, Green Team works on smaller events with the intention to brighten the WHS environment.
“We garden right outside of the building, and recently we planted dahlias,” Simmons said. “Also, we spread milkweed to the field right behind our high school, which attracts a lot of butterflies.”
Beyond her attributions for the Green Team, Simmons joined NHS during her junior year of high school. She was titled as the project manager, which required Simmons to lead activities for the NHS.
“Since I am project manager for the NHS, I lead all of the projects that we host,” Simmons said. “This includes the Fall Festival, and other projects that NHS works on. Also, we need 20 hours of community service per semester, so I volunteer at an array of different things.”
Another requirement of the NHS are the leadership projects. Simmons decided to create a “climate change card game,” which is a cause and effect timeline including cards that you have to sort. To get her project up and running, Simmons sent out emails to all the teachers during Earth week, and received two teachers who agreed to let her host the game during their classes.
“The first round, I ran into a lot of roadblocks because it was our first time running the actual game,” Simmons said. “I plan to host the game again this year, along with moderations to the game, and I will have the Green Team helping to facilitate the games.”
Simmons has had substantial contributions and time spent on planning, creating and organizing several events. She has worked towards showcasing the dangers of climate change, and highlighting the reality of what our environment and world is evolving into.
“I believe that climate change is a pressing issue and I think that we need to fix it,” Simmons said. “In order to fix it, we need to spread more awareness which can be done through the local community, my NHS project and the green team.”
On top of her other advocacies, Simmons takes Advanced Placement (AP) Art this year, and she has to select a theme for all of her projects.
“I picked climate change, and here I used watercolor to illustrate the trees around my house that have been cut in order for wires to travel through,” Simmons said. “I wanted to show the relationship between nature and humans’ impact on it.”
