News and Updates

  • Club members are currently giving presentations about Palo Alto Green, Palo Alto's renewable energy program, in science classes and handing out brochures to students to give to their parents. We're finishing up our first round of presentations and will start another round after Winter Break. If you're interested in getting involved, don't hesitate to contact us!
  • We've been passing out free cloth bags at Mollie Stones frequently on the weekends and hope to start expanding to other grocery stores, as we've found that most Mollie Stones shoppers already have cloth bags. We even gave some bags to Steve Young! :)
  • Our Green Movie Night (in the Little Theater) is set for January or February. The date is TBD.

About us

  • The Gunn Environmental Club is a group of approximately 12 Gunn students who meet weekly to discuss and plan ways to “greenify” the school. The club has been featured in the Gunn Oracle, the Palo Alto Daily, and the Palo Alto Weekly, and was featured in the last edition of the Gunn Olympian (the yearbook). 
  • The club meets on Mondays at lunch in room L6. Our adviser is English teacher Justin Brown. Contact gunnenvironmentalclub@gmail.com for more information.

What we’ve done so far

  • Sold close to 200 Nalgene reusable water bottles and convinced the school to purchase water bottles with the Green Gunn logo on them (now are available in the Student Activities Center)
  • Worked on occasional environmental stewardship projects with Magic and Acterra (throughout) 
  • Given away more than 200 cloth bags to students to use in place of paper and plastic bags at the grocery store (throughout) 
  • Made presentations in various classes about PaloAltoGreen, given away brochures and put up PaloAltoGreen posters around the school (spring 2006)
  • Held two environmentally-friendly holiday fairs, selling water bottles and Endangered Species chocolate (Dec. 2006, 2007)
  • Put on a school-wide assembly, with speakers Stephen Schneider (Stanford) and Mayor Yoriko Kishimoto, and a video-showing of “10 Simple Steps to Make Your Life More Green” (Feb. 2007)
  • Held a contest to design a Green Gunn logo, shown above (March 2007)
  • Planned and executed the first ever Gunn Earth Week. Activities included a film screening in the Little Theatre about why to recycle electronics, a speech in the Student Activites Center by Palo Alto City Councilman Peter Drekmeier, a solar cooking demo, a raffle to give away a solar cooking cookbook, free samples of local and organic food, a cloth bag giveaway, a converted exercise bike for students to ride that powers both incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs, etc. The Second Annual Gunn Earth Week will be taking place next week, with some new additions, including laptops on the main quad for students to calculate their carbon footprints, a PHEV (Pluggable Hybrid Electric Vehicle) on campus, and the sale of Green Gunn t-shirts (April 2006, 2007)
  • Co-hosted an electronics recycling event with GreenCitizen on Earth Day last year—the club received 10% of the profits generated by the event and helped to bring numerous first-time customers to the company through advertisement in PAUSD newsletters (will be happening again this year!) (April 2006, 2007)
  • Ordered and sold Green Gunn t-shirts from American Apparel, made of organic cotton (April 2007-present)