Aedan Anbesse • Staff Writer
efforts. With her brother as the president of USU’s environment club, she wanted to do something similar at Logan High. Previous to 2015, Logan High’s leaf club was withering away, that was until Piper gathered a group of friends to revitalize the club. Beginning her Sophomore year, she was the president and was re-elected this year. During construction this summer, the school moved hundreds of boxes of furniture into the school. Once the items were removed from their boxes, the school had plans to simply throw away the cardboard boxes. Once Piper heard about this, she immediately went into action and started organizing a plan to recycle the boxes. Over the span of two days the club recycled over 3,000 pounds of cardboard from Logan High that would have previously take up space in the Logan landfill. By far the most impactful proposition that the club had was in the spring of last school year. LEAF Club decided to take their concerns on the air quality to the city council. Each member wrote a testimonial about how the air quality affects their life in the valley and some resolutions on how to improve the air quality and shared their resolutions with the council. Christian didn’t think that the resolutions would be passed, but the council voted it in unanimously, “I was glad that our efforts had paid off,” she said when she found out the news. In the winter of last year, Utah Moms for Clean Air wanted to invite students from all over Utah who were interested in the environment to go to the United Nations Climate Summit and act as their news correspondents at the summit. Unfortunately, a month before the trip was planned, a terrorist attack in France led to the trip to being cancelled. Fortunately, Christian was good friends with the woman who planned the trip and was able to convince her to take just her to the summit. As the only high schooler from Utah to attend the event, she went in with a relatively naïve idea on what she’d be doing there, presuming that she’d be able to attend the seminars on climate change, but she was unable to “since it was right after the terrorist attack and security was super high.” Determined to not waste the opportunity, she decided to interview people instead. Pulling people aside, she recorded interviews with individuals across the globe on how climate change affects them. She interviewed people from six continents and 12 countries in total, two of whom were a 12-year-old from Bali who went on a hunger strike to ban plastic bags and a Sudanese man whose crops were being severely affected by climate change. Christian said, “Before hearing these stories, my actions as an individual felt insignificant,” and it was after this she returned to Logan feeling extremely inspired and determined to do something in Logan that would actually make a difference. Earlier this year, she presented about the importance of getting youth involved with the environment at a Utah environmental conference. It was there that someone nominated her to speak at the upcoming September TedX Talk. After applying and being accepted she is now planning on giving a presentation on her work in Paris on September 17 at the The Nancy Peery Marriott Auditorium at Kingsbury Hall. Overall Piper is one of the most environmentally passionate people at Logan High, getting raving reviews from teachers like Mr. Semadeni, the Leaf Club advisor. He said, “She has been proactive and she sets goals and strives to accomplish those goals. She has a very consistent group of kids coming to meetings, has reached out to Ridgeline to start their own environmental club, and has really good support through club membership.” He also said that “she’s extremely passionate and takes what she does serious and really enjoys what she’s doing." Christian is bringing environmental awareness to Logan High, awareness which could lead to changes that could impact future generations of Cache Valley.
1 Comment
10/16/2016 10:43:59 am
Piper is so inspiring. It almost hurts my head to think about how accomplished she is. Much love.
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