Amity Trident Amity's Student Newspaper

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With pollution, global warming, and animal extinction constantly in the news, there is no argument that Earth is facing problems that grow increasingly serious each day.

Amity proved conscious of these issues by celebrating Earth Day’s 30th anniversary on April 22 with a screening of the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove and continuing to try and reduce its environmental impact.

On Wednesday, April 21st, the Marine Biology Club offered a showing of The Cove, a film that brought to attention Japan’s hidden dolphin industry that leads to the slaughtering of thousands of dolphins, to the Amity student body. Senior Bekah Stein helped coordinate the event with science teachers Valerie Cournoyer and Patricia Nevolis, advisers to the club. Stein described the event as "a decent turnout of more or less 100 people."

Meanwhile,  Amity continued its environmental efforts throughout school. Amity currently recycles not only all paper and plastic wastes but uses fluorescent light bulbs and refurbishes old classroom desks. "Amity does bigger things than just the paper and plastic you see and hear about," principal Dr. Britton commented.

Additionally, Amity's Science Department was directed to incorporate environmental awareness studies into its classes. "It would be hard to teach a class like biology or chemistry without returning to their connections with the Earth," Britton said. "In the long run, everything revolves back to the Earth."

Generally, students see environmental efforts at Amity adequate to for the current body. Junior Zezhong He remarked, "I think overall Amity does a good job providing an environmentally friendly environment, but a lot of it is on the students. It's really simple, just put it in the blue basket instead of the trash."

Britton noted similarly that students are still personally responsible for their environmental impacts. "I have not given any mandates or rationing in the school; students are still relatively left to themselves when deciding about paper and such."

However, since the recent paper crisis, Britton has noted an improvement by teachers in reducing paper in classrooms. "I do see teacher putting assignments on the web or using other media instead of printing handouts to use less paper."

Yet as Earth Day came to a close, Britton still reminds people that, for the benefit of the planet, it is necessary to do more. "I think we still have a way to go. We have no choice, whether we'll change out of good heart, or because we are forced to."