Written by: Phoebe Karan
At the beginning of February this school year, the Forest Lake High School Environmental Club YES! Team received funds from the McKnight Foundation for their project Reducing Energy and Habitats for Bees. The group has since then been using the fundings to first educate the school and community, then to provide LED light bulbs and finally to create another pollinator garden at their school Forest Lake High Senior High.
On January 8th, the Forest Lake Environmental Club put on a showing in the school’s auditorium of the climate change documentary Before the Flood. Before the showing took place the club purchased one hundred LED light bulbs to hand out to the first hundred viewers. During the process of acquiring the light bulbs, one student wrote out a pamphlet on some background information of topics discussed in the documentary while a handful of club members created five informative tables to be set up the night of the film. All of the tables covered different areas of the environment that the club was contributing to. 
The first was a recycling table that showed what the club had been doing to improve the school’s recycling. Second was a Pollinator table which gave out seed bombs and talked about the pollinator garden the club had planted and the second one they were planning on doing. The next table described the new solar panels the school had recently put in. Then there was the Food Share table which explained the new project the club was trying at lunches, having a table where students can put unused food and others can take it. Finally there was a table to demonstrate the different temperatures of incandescent, CFL and LED light bulbs and measure light bulb efficiency.
The month of April the Environmental Club YES! Team at Forest Lake Senior High started the planning for the second half of the grant. As spring slowly arrived, the group planted seeds to give out during an Earth Day event, and ordered sixty-four native plants to create a pollinator garden for the school property.
“The video was very shocking and struck a chord with me that made me want to help the environment even more.” – student that attended the climate change movie event
“Flowers and plants make everyone feel so much better and create smiles. I love the first garden that we planted and am so excited to be added another one that will bring joy to both the school and the wildlife!” – Environmental Club YES! Team member
