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Members of a high school environmental
club in Southeastern Pennsylvania are giving new meaning to the phrase
"extra-curricular." The students involved spent weekends
and evenings building an environmental demonstration home, and are
now tackling all sorts of sustainable living projects. Gwen Shaffer
reports.
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Home, Sweet Home
Pennsylvania students are using their environmental demonstration
home to teach others.
By Gwen Shaffer
 Wandering
through a beautiful A-frame house, three high school seniors describe
some of it's unique features: double-paned and Argon filled windows,
carpet made from recycled soda bottles, a composting toilet that uses
absolutely no water, sinks that drain into nearby gardens…
These students at Souderton Area High School - about 19 miles northeast
of Philadelphia - are not wandering through the rooms of some futuristic,
high-tech mansion. Rather, they're giving a tour of an eco-friendly
home that their former classmates helped design and build, on school
district property a few years ago. SAVE, or Students Against Violating
the Earth, formed in 1992 as a small recycling club at Souderton Area
High School. The group now boasts 200 members, who use this house
as their headquarters. And while the home opened to the public in
September 1997, it is a constant work in progress. Over time, its
eight-acre grounds have come to include a green house and filtration
ponds - also designed and built by SAVE members.
The students use the space to teach younger kids about environmental
issues, and as a store for selling ecologically sound products. Environmental
science teacher Ken Hamilton serves as the club's advisor.
"We learned that over 90 percent of our lives are spent at home.
And to have long-lasting impact on the environment is to change the
way we live within that lifestyle," Hamilton says. "So we
worked diligently to make this place a place where people can learn
about changing their lives at home."
 Students
worked with a local architect to come up with the blueprint. The main
room has an 18-foot cathedral ceiling. And the second story was designed
as an open loft, to maximize airflow. Windows dominate the south side
of the building, which is bordered by a forest. In the summer time,
the leaves shade the house and keep it cool. Cellulose insulation
is stuffed between the walls. Not only is this material very effective,
but its made from recycled newspapers. And all the wooden beams used
to support the house are made from recycled wood fiber, or wood that
was sustainably harvested in the United States.
Club members are in the process of incorporating several new technologies
into the house, Hamilton adds.
"One new technology we plan to bring into the home is an outdoor
watering system for gardens, run completely by solar and gray water
so that we can demonstrate that people don't have to water lawns with
faucets. Instead, we can collect water and use it to water the gardens."
 The
idea for the house first began to take shape in late 1995. The students
calculated that the project would cost roughly $96,000 by the time
the final nail was hammered in. At the time, the club had $200 in
the bank. Some hardcore fundraising was obviously needed. The students
began hitting up local businesses for donations and hosting fundraisers.
They dubbed the house Project EFFECT - an acronym for Environmentally
Friendly Facility Exploring Conservation Technologies. Within five
months, the kids had raised nearly $25,000. Once they had the seed
money, club members needed to determine the scope of the project.
"We wanted an environmental demonstration home for the community
so they could come in here and take a look at environmental products
and see how they work," Hamilton says. "The second purpose
was to create a space to bring in community groups and young children,
and show them ways they can change their lifestyle at home and have
a greater impact on the environment. And third was to provide ourselves
a space from which to operate."
SAVE broke ground for the house in April 1996, but a wet spring delayed
construction. By the time winter rolled around, the house was still
a mere shell, and money was starting to dwindle. Just as spirits were
turning as damp as the weather, a secretary at Souderton Area High
nominated Project EFFECT for an environmental excellence award sponsored
by Sea World. The judges chose the house as the best student initiative
in the country. With the honor, came $32,000 and national recognition.
The house was completed, and opened to the public in September 1997.
 On
a recent afternoon, four Souderton Area High seniors are using the
house to teach local second graders. They help settle the little ones
into neat rows on the floor, and describe some of the unique features
of the house. The scene is a Twenty-first Century version of a TupperWare
party - minus the housewives. Instead, the seniors show off their
wares to seven year olds, who "ooh" and "ahhh"
in amazement.
"This house has a lot of cool stuff," Jessica Kohlman tells
them. "Did you ever recycle a plastic soda bottle? This blanket
is made from old soda bottles…."
Lisa Casani holds a pretty woven area rug.
"…And this rug is made from recycled blue jeans, like some
of you are wearing. I'll pass it around so you can feel how soft it
is," she says.
 Then
the seniors lead a lesson on the water cycle, using a curriculum that
they designed. To drive the information home, Kohlman divides up her
pupils for some role-playing.
"You guys will be clouds….these balls are raindrops and
water…come up to the sky with me…you guys are trees,"
she tells the second graders, who laugh hysterically and run into
place. "You guys are going to be runoff and you're going to roll
the raindrops into rivers. If the trees don't catch them…the
runoff will pick the rainsdrops up…they will roll from the river
to the ocean…"
Clearly, the house is being used as a teaching space, just as SAVE
members originally intended. And since January, the club has been
achieving another goal. On the first Saturday of each month, members
transform the house into a store, stocked with hundreds of environmentally
safe items, from cleaning supplies to furniture. At the grand opening
of the store in Janaury, students sold 505 items in four hours - ranging
from writing journals constructed of old metal license plates, to
buckets made from recycled plastic, says teacher Ken Hamilton.
"The goal we decided was to try and get products into homes so
they can try them out. The products we have here, SAVE sells at cost,"
he says. "We're not making a profit."
 Club
member Casani says the organization has truly broadened her horizons.
"I wasn't aware of anything like this until I became involved
in SAVE," she says. It taught me a lot of things and its kind
of a passion of mine now.
Kohlman says her involvement in SAVE has been inspirational.
"We have a bumper sticker that says, 'If you're not outraged,
you're not paying attention.' It sounds funny but it really has impacted
me, it has me a lot more aware of what is going on," she says.
Jessica adds that she has even gotten used to the teasing by her more
mainstream peers. "They come to us and ask us questions about
environmental-type stuff. And think we are crazy people who hug trees
and chain ourselves to trees and stuff…they do."
But, Jessica and her classmates insist, they'd really be crazy if
they didn't at least try to make a difference.
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LINKS
Students Against
Violating the Earth
Learn what the environmental club at Souderton Area High School
is up to these days.
Green Builder
Get tips for designing your own eco-friendly house.
U.S. Green Building
Council
These leaders from across the building industry work to promote environmentally
responsible, profitable, and healthy places to live and work.
Eco-Mall
Can't make it to Souderton to shop for environmentally-friendly products?
Try this website.
Project
Effect House
GreenWorks Rough Terrain story about the Project Effect House. Hear
from the people involved in making this house possible.
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