Activism club spotlight

The newly founded Palo Alto High School Environment and Medicine Club is teaching elementary schoolers about living green, converting Paly’s school buses to electric, and getting rid of plastic in school lunches. 

Co-presidents and co-founders Anika Deshpande and Sid Iyer started the club last semester due to their interest in biology and the environment. The club’s original purpose was purely educational, however, the club shifted focus after a successful school board meeting about the removal of plastic in school cafeterias.

“Our original goal was to educate students and give them a platform to see where they could be volunteering, and we wanted to promote volunteering opportunities for kids at Paly,” Deshpande said. “But it ended up going further into the activist side because I remember we decided to speak at one of the PAUSD board meetings.”

After the board meeting, Deshpande said that school board President Shana Segal reached out to attend one of the club’s meetings.

Since then, the club has been trying to work closely with the school board in order to provide a student voice on sustainable practices at schools.

“We suggested that the board incorporate student voices in the sustainability committee and we had suggested that they add a seat for student voices that can be filled by our club,” Deshpande said. 

The club is also pushing for the removal of plastic from school cafeterias by piloting new biodegradable and compostable items. To support the program, the club applied for a grant. 

“We applied for some grants … and it’s up to $5,000 and we’re pretty hopeful, and we think we can get it,” Iyer said.

The money will be used to support a variety of other efforts as well, like increasing the amount of education workshops. One example of an education workshop was a recent event where club members presented to over 80 third graders about sustainability practices at Palo Verde.

“We started presenting to elementary schools, and we’re trying to implement sustainability at a younger age,” Iyer said.

Deshpande said that many other schools have shown interest, but the club needs more funding to host more of these education workshops.

Another project the club is pursuing, according to Iyer, is making school buses more environmentally friendly.

“Right now we’re especially fighting for electrifying the white fleet, which means that we want to make all the school buses electric,” Iyer said.

Some of the school buses students use have already been converted, but many of the buses that maintenance workers and landscapers use are still gas-powered. 

So far, Iyer says that the Paly faculty have been very supportive of these efforts, but he warns that change will still take time.

“They’re not against working with us, but it does take time to try and set up a meeting and talk with other people and go forward with it [the club’s plans],” Iyer said.