The school’s first ecology project, dubbed “Project Cleanup,” took place from Feb. 14-21, with the aim to help the community by picking up trash. The project was started by biology teacher Jessica Markovich with all of her current students

“It’s mostly about just keeping our area nice and clean and showing people how disciplined we are with taking care of our environment,” freshman student Daniel Malka said.

Each student was required to take a photo of the trash they picked up before cleaning up  and afterwards. The project has picked up 1,508.1 pounds of trash in places, such as highways, parks and schools.

“A lot of people throw away trash in areas instead of putting it in the trash can, so when we do this it really helps the community,” freshman Gabby Rodriguez said.

This is the first year of the project, so Markovich’s classes were the only students participating in the event, however, she hopes to increase participation by recruiting other classes to help with the cleanup next year. 

“With all the teachers we should be able to make our numbers increase and maybe do it in a large area,” Markovich said.