As part of the Environmental Council (ECo) at my school, I, as well as other core council members, initiated "No Impact Week 2015", which was from February 2-6, 2015. The purpose of holding "No Impact Week" was to reduce and minimize our negative environmental impact within our school community as well as on Earth. The primary aim for this event was to encourage students, teachers and faculty members to become more sustainable, environmentally friendly individuals and to raise environmental awareness within elementary school, middle school, and high school community. We created a Facebook page called "No Impact Week 2015" and invited students and teachers to like the page so that they can keep themselves updated with recent news, reminders or messages related to this event.

"No Impact Week" is a very special, annually held one-week event. Each school day is given its own unique theme. But for this article, I will be exploring what we did on Monday (February 2).

 

The theme for Monday was a "Well-Being" day, in which we tried to promote students and teachers to become healthy individuals by encouraging them to have happy and healthy mindsets. We also encouraged students to become more appreciative and thankful. We therefore asked students to put and stick post-it notes on teachers' doors, listing compliments or possibly entertaining and humorous jokes. This was one of creative ways that the students could express their gratitude for the teachers' limitless efforts.

 

We also initiated "Thank-You Nomination" on Facebook in which students were required to list 5 things that they are thankful for. They were also asked to nominate other friends to do the same thing. This was a very special initiative as it was a unique way that allowed students to deeply contemplate and look back at things they are grateful for and post them on their Facebook Timeline.

 

We also created a promotional video to promote what students can do during each specific day during "No Impact Week" (in this case, the "Well-being Day"). We also created tarps and posters and posted these on school's televisions, walls, and ceilings. In this way students, teachers, and faculties can be aware of each specific day in "No Impact Week".

 

In sum, "No Impact Week" has dual and antithetical implications and meanings. In a literal sense, "No Impact Week" allows us to reduce our negative environmental impact on our school community as well as on Earth. However, in a more figurative sense, "No Impact Week" is actually our "own" way of making sustainable impact on our school community as we try to spread healthier habits among students, teachers, and faculty members.

 

Here are the posters that we created for this event. First poster promotes "No Impact Week: Well-being Day" and second poster shows "No Impact Week" logo.