Forest Park students go green

By Amanda Stewart

Published: May 22, 2008

They came by bike, by scooter, by longboard and by foot.

Thursday morning hundreds of Forest Park High School students and teachers left their cars at home and took other forms of transportation to school for for the school’s first “Get Green” day.

Students in Shannon Geraghty’s advanced placement government class organized the day to raise awareness for the environment.

“I really wanted to do something for the environment,” said senior Carlin Tacey who first thought of the event as part of an independent study project for the government class.
“I thought it would just be me and a few friends at first, but then other people got interested and we tried to make it a school-wide event,” she said.

About 1,000 students, teachers and school administrators pledged to go green for the day.

The Forest Park students encouraged students at other county high schools to participate as well.

Thursday morning students glided into Forest Park’s parking lot on scooters and roller blades, pedaled in on bicycles and piled out of buses and carpools.

“We rode our bikes in from Montclair,” Tacey said. “It was fun and a good way to have conversations with friends.”

Sophomores Kristen Forbes and Chelsea Schiefelbein also chose to bike to school on Thursday.

“It took me half an hour to get here,” Forbes said after she parked her bike in the school’s driver’s education parking lot. “In a car, it takes like five minutes.”

But, she said, biking was worth the extra time.

“It was a nice bike ride here,” she said. “It was a good change.”

“We just thought it would be fun to do,” Schiefelbein said as she looked out on the mostly empty school parking lot shortly after 7 a.m. “The parking lot’s going to be so empty. Usually it’s packed by now.”

Teachers and administrators participated in the days events too.

Students cheered as they saw principal Eric Brent walk to the school around 7 a.m.

Geraghty and several other teachers met at a Bloom store on Spriggs Road and walked to school from there.

The students said they hoped their “Go Green” say would make a difference.

“I don’t think in the short term it will do much, but hopefully people will see that they can do this more often,” said senior Eric Hunter, who rode to school on a scooter. “I think this will help people realize that cars aren’t the only way to get to school.”

Students in Geraghty’s class wore green tie dyed shirts for the occasion and passed out stickers, which could be redeemed for cookies at lunch, to students who carpooled, rode the bus, walked, or took other alternative transportation to school.

Geraghty said she was pleased with the students’ efforts.

“This is a great turnout. I think they did great,” she said. “It’s hard to convince teenagers to give up their car for a day. It’s a right of passage to get your car at 16 and they don’t want to give that up.”

By 7:30 a.m., just before the first bell rang for the day, the school’s student parking lot was a little less than half full.

The government students huddled in a circle for one last cheer before going off to class.

“Get green, get heard!,” they cheered.

Staff writer Amanda Stewart can be reached at 703-878-8014.