Students at two local high schools have teamed up in an unexpected way

Students from two local high schools that are longtime rivals joined forces to help a non-profit 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.

In the sustainability classroom at Shaler Area High School, it can get messy as students are busy potting plants to sell. The Sustainability Club at Shaler is raising money for the Allegheny Land Trust. It’s something they’ve done since 2020 to help protect the land at Girty’s Woods in Millvale which is prone to flooding.

Teacher Abbey Nilson teaches her students that preserving the land at Girty’s Woods, as greens pace 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 are in the Shaler Area School District and have seen massive floods. The remnants of Hurricaine 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.

To prevent future flooding, 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,” says Lindsay Dill, Senior Director of Communication for the Allegheny Land Trust.

The Allegheny Land Trust says it’s important to keep this land undeveloped, so the rain and snow is 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 Maddie Walker, a Shaler Area High School senior.

So Shaler Area joined forces with North Hills High School to help raise money to purchase the property in Ross Township. North Hills High School students put on a brass band concert and held a black tie fundraising event. The schools also teamed up to host a fundraiser at the Ross Community Park where they sold tote bags designed by students at both schools.

Together, they raised more than $5,000 which contributed to the $45,000 community contribution goal for the project.

“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.”

Beyond helping the environment, it’s been an inspiring and eye-opening experience for the students.

“Typically, like you said, we are rivals,” says Kaysia Chelli, a senior at Shaler Area High School. “But we’re really next door neighbors, and everything we do affects each other. So it’s really good to work together for once.”

The Allegheny Land Trust now has the full amount needed to purchase the land, thanks to a combination of community, township and grant money. So the extra funds that the students raise going forward from plant sales 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.” says North Hills High School senior Liv Miller.

Students at both schools gained a powerful understanding through this experience.

“We only have one planet Earth. There is no planet B,” says Maggie Boggs, Shaler Area High School senior.

As they grapple with the environmental challenges that all Pittsburgh communities are facing, these students realized what a powerful role they can play. And they learned that sometimes your rival is your best partner in creating positive progress.

“The big change for them was being able to be a part of it and affect that change,” says Laura Clark, environmental science teacher at North Hills High School. “Because that’s something they don’t usually have an opportunity to do and or feel like they make a difference.”