MVHS performs at the FUHSD Climate Collective Earth Day event

MVHS Drama and Choir students performed at the FUHSD-hosted Earth Day event on Wednesday, April 22. The event took place at Mountain View’s Computer History Museum and featured presentations and skits on climate education from a variety of students from FUHSD schools. The event lasted from 4 to 8 p.m. and was separated into three segments dedicated to sponsor hours, seated programs and student presentations.

During the seated program, the MVHS Drama performed the skit “We Love Biking to School: The Mu-Cycle,” written by junior Beck Poltronetti, senior Shannon Yu and directed by both Yu and senior Gauri Debade. The skit offered a comedic take on biking to school and its environmental benefits compared to driving. Afterward, the MVHS Choir class performed the song “Keep Marching” from the Broadway musical “Suffs,” a show about the American women’s suffrage movement. The seated program also featured performances from other FUHSD schools, including a skit on AI by Lynbrook High School’s drama and a fashion show featuring outfits created from recyclable materials by LHS’s InDesign Club.

As an MVHS co-lead of the FUHSD Climate Collective, junior and Choir performer Suhani Nirwal also helped plan the event. Nirwal believes the event overall went better than in previous years, particularly in organization and planning. Even though there were minor inconveniences during the event, namely the misspelling of presenters’ names on the name tags, she still thinks the event was much more immersive.

“We really focused on keeping the audience engaged,” Nirwal said. “That’s something we improved on heavily, because we didn’t have just people talking at you. I think that the choir performance, the drama performances and the Lynbrook InDesign fashion show were really engaging, and we did a much better job at keeping our audience members hooked.”

Attendee and MVHS parent Rishi Agarwal also says the performances gave the event a more entertaining flair, appreciating the students’ effort to convey the environmental message while also remaining fun and light-hearted. Agarwal also highlights the organizers’ ability to bring together multiple groups of students from different schools.

“I think it is supremely well organized,” Agarwal said. “There are several things about the event that I find very impressive. First, the fact that it’s on a district-wide scale. It’s not one school, it’s all schools. This Climate Collective gives the students an opportunity to collaborate between schools. I think it’s a wonderful exposure for everybody involved.”

Drama actor and sophomore Vikram Mallya was very proud of his performance at the event. Although Mallya was not originally planning to reprise his role in “We Love Biking to School: the Mu-Cycle,” he says Yu and Debade convinced him after another actor dropped the performance at the last minute. Overall, Mallya was glad to participate in this event and believes the group’s performance is symbolic of the theater’s ability to be resilient through unplanned circumstances.

“Drama is fluid in the way it can be made into whatever,” Mallya said. “It’s an expression of emotions and the performance can show whatever emotions you want. It doesn’t have to be any rigid certain way. It can be anything. That’s the real beauty of it, that I feel like we can show off in these types of events, and why I’m proud to be here.”

Nirwal emphasized the message of the song that the MVHS choir performed, saying that even in a time when fighting for the environment feels pointless in the face of an administration that denies and prevents aid to climate change, it’s still important to keep fighting for the cause. The hope and strength required to fight for these movements can be seen more prevalently through the song.

“The lyrics of the song talk about how you won’t live to see the future that you fight for,” Nirwal said. “Our current administration doesn’t believe that climate change is a thing. They have said multiple times that it’s a hoax, and it decreases profit. They’ve overturned bills and things that were supposed to be helping the environment. We look at these things, and we think, ‘If the most powerful figures of authority in the country aren’t backing us up, then what is the point?’ But the main message of the song is just to keep marching through those struggles with strength and unity.”

Overall, Nirwal says the Earth Day Program was significant to the FUHSD community through its combination of environmental advocacy and humanities, which enhanced the messages and goals the Climate Collective attempted to achieve during this event. Nirwal says that these performances and art not only educate students on environmental topics, but also the community as a whole. 

“These are projects that students have been working on for the past academic year,” Nirwal said. “It gives students awareness and it shows the staff members, parents and the community members that our students are doing wonderful interdisciplinary actions that I think should be prioritized and not be looked over.”