Rio Hall and Sophia Barnes
Rio Hall and Sophia Barnes have been taking small steps to create big changes at New Albany High School. The two co-chair the school’s environmental club, however, their passion for the planet extends far beyond that.
The pair first teamed up sophomore year, when Barnes was looking to get involved.
“I really wanted to join the environmental club, and then Rio was actually the one that helped me get on the board,” Barnes says. “She was on the board her sophomore year, and then she got me on the board for my junior year.”
Since then, they have taken New Albany by storm and started a composting program in the cafeteria, implemented recycling in all classrooms and installed no idling signs in the parking lot.
Although their time at New Albany High School has come to an end, both Hall and Barnes say this is just the beginning of their environmental advocacy journeys.
How it started
New Albany High School
Hall and Barnes got an early introduction to the importance of the environment and sustaining it. For Barnes, it was her dad who showed her not only why advocacy matters, but how to go about it.
“I think my biggest inspiration is probably my dad. (He) is a fifth-grade science teacher at New Albany, and so when I was younger, I used to do a lot of outdoor activities and outdoor labs that got me interested in environmental science,” Barnes says.
For Hall, it was her volunteer work that inspired her to look for ways to get engaged in high school.
“I think my environmental club interest kind of started out when I was a freshman,” Hall says. “I did a lot of volunteer work in the community, and then I ended up doing this tree planting event with the environmental club my freshman year. That ended up going really well, and I decided to try and get on the board and keep that interest going.”
Work beyond high school
Rio Hall and Sophia Barnes
While the two are very proud of what they’ve accomplished at New Albany, they have their sights set on new beginnings, while also making sure to smooth the transition for those running the environmental club after them.
Hall will be attending Lafayette College where she will study environmental engineering. She visited back in January and fell in love immediately.
“I applied because I knew they had a really good engineering program, but I visited, and I immediately knew that I wanted to go there,” Hall says. “It was right away, I toured their engineering building and got to meet a lot of the faculty members. And I just loved it.”
Barnes will be attending Elon University to study public policy and environmental studies. For her, it was an easy decision as well.
“It was one of my tops right away,” Barnes says. “I loved the liberal arts feel of it. I loved the small class sizes. It just felt like I could fit in there. And I think one of the big things was they care a lot about sustainability.”
New Albany High School
While both are excited about what’s to come, they still have work to do in New Albany. When talking about transitioning leadership, they expressed a nervous excitement.
“I definitely think that the majority of high school students need a lot of convincing. Or maybe (are) not that excited about a composting program,” Hall says. “But what has really been impressive to me is (the) individual students who have so much passion about the environment. I think that a lot of the people who are in our club want to work really hard to get these projects off the ground, and are very excited to have new projects.”
They believe their generation will play an important role in the future of environmental advocacy and hopefully preservation.
“Once people in our generation start to pursue their own passions and jobs and go to college and get that experience, I think, as a collective, that frustration can turn more into drive,” Hall says. “I’m really hopeful that a lot of this can be changed in the future, so we can see significant shifts.”
Maxwell Knauer is an editorial assistant at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
