2 Pittsburgh-area high schools team up to help nonprofit buy land to protect the environment
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Two longtime rival local high schools joined forces to help a nonprofit buy land to protect the environment. In the process, they learned that they can impact the future of their community, no matter how old they are.
It can get messy in the sustainability classroom at Shaler Area High School, with students potting plants to sell. The Sustainability Club at Shaler is raising money for the Allegheny Land Trust, something they've done since 2020 to help protect the land at Girty's Woods in Millvale, which is prone to flooding.
Abbey Nilson teaches her students that preserving the land at Girty's Woods as greenspace will help reduce flooding.
"I call it community-based learning, where students work to help solve real problems in their community. This is right up my alley. I feel like it's something they're hopefully going to remember for a lifetime," Nilson says.
Millvale and Etna, in the Shaler Area School District, have seen massive floods. The remnants of Hurricane Ivan in 2004 caused eight feet of water from Girty's Run to rush through the business district. More recently in 2021, students from Shaler schools had to be rescued from their school bus when it stalled out in flood waters.
This time, the Allegheny Land Trust wanted to purchase land, not in Girty's Woods, but in Ross Township, behind their municipal building and playing fields because of its impact on lower-lying communities in the Shaler area.
"The elevation maps of our very hilly region will show that this land sits at one of the highest elevations, and as we know, gravity exists, water runs down," Lindsay Dill, Senior Director of Communication for the Allegheny Land Trust, explained.
The Allegheny Land Trust says it's important to keep this land undeveloped so the rain and snow are absorbed into the ground. Development with concrete would cause the water to run off and flood the lower areas like Shaler.
"That really impacts us because it would destroy a lot of our homes and businesses," explains Shaler High School senior, Maddie Walker.
The two districts joined forces to help raise money to purchase the property in Ross Township. North Hills High School students staged a brass band concert and held a black tie event. The schools also held a fundraiser at the Ross Community Park, where they sold tote bags designed by students at both schools.
Together, they raised over $5,000, contributing to the project's $45,000 community contribution goal.
"The students worked really, really hard," Dill says, "and they really rocketed this effort out into the public awareness and helped us realize that community fundraising goal."
"Typically, like you said, we are rivals, but we're really next-door neighbors, and everything we do affects each other, so it's really good to work together for once," said Kaysia Chelli, a Shaler Area High School senior.
Now that the Allegheny Land Trust has the full amount needed to purchase the land with the community, township, and grant money, the extra funds that the students raise from the plants and other projects will go toward maintaining the land and possibly turning it into trails where they can walk and study the natural habitat.
"It was pretty surreal being able to learn that stuff last year but really apply it now, and seeing that Shaler students and students from North Hills alike, just all kind of having the same ah-ha moment of, 'Well, this is a real thing. It's not just in a textbook,'" North Hills High School senior Liv Miller said.
"The big change for them was being able to be a part of it and affect that change because that's something they don't usually have an opportunity to do and or feel like they make a difference," said Laura Clark, an environmental science teacher at North Hills High School.
"We only have one planet Earth. There is no planet B," adds Maggie Boggs, a Shaler Area High School senior.
These students learned that they can create change and that sometimes, your rival is your best partner.