High school student Jackson Hinkle is the founder of Team Zissou Environmental Organization, a group lead by youth advocating for sustainable policies. The organization coordinates events and projects, inspiring youth to make a change in their community.
What is the Team Zissou Environmental Organization?
What is the Team Zissou Environmental Organization?
Team Zissou is a youth-led environmental organization with eight chapters across the United States. We focus on mobilizing kids to do environmental volunteer work going out into nature, like environmental excursions as well as environmental activism and education. Those are the big things.
What inspired you to create this organization?
There are two big things that inspired me. One is seeing the plastic pollution in our oceans and realizing that I needed to take a stand against that, and like I had organized this club and there was a bunch of kids that wanted to be involved with it, but there was no real direction. I felt like it would be unwise to have that many kids and not do something bold like that. Getting plastics out of our schools, communities, etc. My good friend Xiuhtezcatl Martinez is suing the federal government right now over climate change and fossils fuels and things of that nature. His story really inspired me, and I thought 'wow I need to do things like that.'”
What are some things that Team Zissou has done in the local area?
We have lead countless volunteer events like gardening days, beach clean-ups, habitat restorations and providing kids with hundreds of hours of volunteer opportunities. We have lead environmental education events around the Dakota Access Pipeline, climate change, plastic pollution and these sorts of things. Probably our two biggest things are that we got plastic water bottles out of the 60 plus schools in the Capistrano Unified School District. We were part of an interscholastic campaign that got solar panels on six CUSD high school campuses as well as the school district offices. We also have gotten kids to participate in a bunch of creative direction action against the various ways in which Southern California Edison is attempting to store nuclear waste at San Onofre.
What are some upcoming projects or events?
I think a really cool thing we’re doing is for Earth Day. We are going to be planting 30 trees at San Clemente High School with our San Clemente High School chapter.
How can students get involved with Team Zissou?
Students can get involved with Team Zissou by following us on Instagram. That’s one of our means of communication or by reaching out to us on email. It’s teamzissousc@gmail.com. Starting a Team Zissou chapter at your own school is really the best way to get involved. We help facilitate those chapters and get them started, but there are so many different things you can do with Team Zissou. All of our events are open to the community and are open to everyone. If you follow us on Instagram you can check out our future events and get involved through that.
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