Don't Step on the Tundra

The sun shined through the transparent plastic of my water bottle, casting opalescent reflections of water on the concrete curb. A dirty glance from the person sitting next to me, aluminum water bottle in tow. Dare I throw mine away in the regular trash can?

I remember spending a lunch period, during my freshman year of high school, at a “Fresh Club” meeting opened by students who were dedicated to reducing our school’s carbon footprint. On this particular day, the organization’s student leaders were reviewing the protocol for sorting lunch-room garbage, with separate bins for “compost,” “recycle,” and “trash.” We were given a sign-up sheet to volunteer a fraction of our lunch periods to help the commoners sort their trash in accordance with the colorful laminated posters that hung above each separate waste bin and designated where each piece of garbage should go.

Of course there was nothing unique about that particular lunch meeting, and of course there was no harm and perhaps some worth in it. But its ability to turn school kids into vultures, circling their peers before they dare put a leftover piece of bread in the trash can instead of the compost bin seem to characterize Colorado’s, or at least Fort Collins’s, best intentions toward sustainability. 

In middle school, there were two similar environmentally-conscious clubs that took trips to Catalina Island and Costa Rica to learn about the importance of civic responsibility in relation to the environment. The same middle school that boasts its status as “the most energy efficient school building in the State of Colorado.” It is said to be 100% wind powered, use natural lighting, geo-thermal exchange heating and cooling systems, and occupancy lighting sensors.

Facing my elementary school in Fort Collins, the methodical rhythm of construction pulsed each morning. A fresh house sat atop a mound of finely-milled dirt with its back facing the school playground. It had a rain chain running down from the roof, and four newly-installed solar panels, facing toward the sun. Fort Collins seemed the ideal location for such a house, with real-estate features that paralleled my middle school. Where people returned to their eco-friendly home following their shopping trip to Whole Foods, with brown paper sack filled with produce tucked carefully in the basket of their bicycle.

On the other side of the chain-link fence was my elementary school’s sustainable nature center, where students could relinquish their fifteen minutes of recess in exchange for garden gloves and a shovel to remove weeds and replant new blooms each spring.  

Even the University of Denver offers such opportunities toward bettering the student population while simultaneously improving the community garden and feeding the dwindling population of honey bees. And after you return home from a long day helping out mother earth, green handles on each dorm toilet, and a handy instructional guide remind users that you can flush “up,” for liquid waste in order to conserve water resources.

As a DU student, I looked over the expansive list of SI-Natural class offerings for the Fall Quarter of 2016 with disdain. Another entire year of lab-based science. The last science class I took was basic chemistry when I was a junior in high school. I ended up choosing “Sustaining Life,” a biology class, because I just needed to stay alive long enough to fulfill my requirement.

An eighty-person class, only meeting for two hours each week, with the rest of the supplemental material being provided through a textbook and two different computer software programs. Nearly five entire weeks have been devoted to the importance of maintaining the earth’s biodiversity, appreciating its beauty, and understanding that as humans, our livelihood is intricately related to the prosperity of ecosystems and the environment.

Being environmentally-conscious is hardly a choice. It’s something that is engrained in the education system, reiterated on plaques and posters, and mixed with the brick and mortar of every newly constructed building. So that when you go up to the mountains to enjoy a scenic view of the purple peaks, the vast landscape, or the wildflowers, nobody really even needs to tell you not to step on the tundra.