Throughout the millions of years Earth has been alive the temperatures have risen and fallen, changing the things that lived within it. The Photosynthesizes Club sought to understand how and why this has happened. To do this they began farming, by planting different plants they can understand how climate change has affected the way the plants live.

“At first it was just our project for AP English III, but soon it became more,” Agha Mirza, a senior and current president of the club, said. At the start, the club had only five members with the only goal to spread their passion for plants. “At the beginning, we had only a few members but it soon grew this year into 50 plus members.”

At the start of their passion they only had one plant bed present near the theater. With more members joining the club, the size of their garden would increase..
“The only things that we were able to grow were cabbage and cauliflower. They required daily watering but aside from that, we didn’t have to worry about the cold since it is known for surviving the harsh weather,” senior Gianluca Villegas said

But soon after, their first problems struck: the start of the pandemic, stopping the majority of their activities. Due to the inability to be on school grounds, many of their plants would die off.

“When I originally ran for president I had no idea that I would be running the club online,” Mirza said.

Things began to change with the hard work from many of the members brainstorming ways that their club could continue to exist while everyone was at home. Through this dedication, the club began their first project called the “In-home planting.” This project sought to bring the gardens into people’s homes, giving everyone a chance to begin planting. Following the basic needs of plants members also had the chance to show off their plants with each other in their weekly meetings. With half of the total members participating in the project, their club was able to start up again.

“The project would allow you to pick between a choice of seeds that you would take pictures of and report your time with the plant, letting many in on the passion that the founding members had,” sophomore Kezia Ng said. Anyone who was unable to obtain seeds could contact the president of the club for help. This gave anyone the opportunity to begin growing plants.

Though this is not the end of their goal of restoring and increasing the amount of members the club has. With their next project, which started April 12, many of its members would come back to begin planting again. With Kerr opening up to students to come back, the club would begin running their meetings in person, gathering outside the theater to start up their plants again.

“I hope that by the time I graduate the club will still be explaining its members so that when I come back as an alumnus I can see the club still flourishing in the field of planting,” Mirza said.