Oakland ~ A small student club at Skyline High School will start raising crops -- and environmental awareness -- with a new greenhouse built by students on campus.

Skyline High's Environmentally Conscious Organization built the greenhouse with a panoramic view of Redwood Regional Park and Mount Diablo in part to educate students about environmental issues and ecology, said club founder Jessie Godfrey, a senior.

At a grand opening last week, students ate ice cream donated by Ben & Jerry's in Jack London Square and talked about planting tomatoes, watermelons, squash, corn and other crops.

The new greenhouse is "all the passion I have for the environment in a tangible form," she said.

When it comes to raising awareness, the club has plenty of work to do at Skyline High, members said.

If you try to talk to students about environmental issues, "they call you a hippie," Godfrey said. "It's not a real negative response, it's just an apathetic response."

Of 2,226 students at Skyline High, the Environmentally Conscious Organization has only about a dozen members, and that's on a good day, Godfrey said.

Godfrey said she started ECO when she was a sophomore and was depressed by the amount of wastefulness she saw around her.

Godfrey is editor of Skyline High's newspaper, the Skyline Oracle. She also plays on the soccer team, volunteers at the

Marine Mammal Center and recently became certified to accompany wilderness search and rescue operations, said her father, Rob Godfrey.

The greenhouse could give students who eat McDonald's every day or throw trash on the ground some understanding of ecology and of how food is grown, Jessie Godfrey said.

"Basically, it's our little base of operations," said club member Michelle Dong.

The greenhouse will be open to all students, not just the strong environmentalists, Dong said.

"You don't have to be an environmental fanatic to work in a greenhouse," she said. "It's a nice little stepping stone between not doing anything and doing something about (environmental problems)."

The Oakland Tribune: Cityside
Leanne McLaughlin, Managing Editor
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