As members of the Catholic Church, we see all over the world the devastation caused by the misuse of God’s creation. The Creation Care Team at Saint Pius X aims to educate the parish community on how to live our Catholic faith through protecting our common home and caring for the poor.  Our goal is to commit the Saint Pius X community to positive, concrete actions within our homes and our parish so that we can become a more sustainable society. We strive to answer Pope Francis’s call about climate change in Laudato Si to the most vulnerable currently who are negatively affected by it as well as to protect and preserve it for future generations.

The Creation Care Team is part of a network of parish groups organized by the Catholic Climate Covenant (CCC), a nonprofit organization, created in 2006 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, to address growing ecological awareness and the need to implement Catholic social teaching on ecology within the U.S. Church.

MISSION:
Our mission is to pray, act, educate and advocate for the care of our common home, the Earth.
 
PRAY and reflect on the duty to protect the poor and vulnerable by caring for God’s Creation.
 
ACT to reduce our contribution to climate change.
 
EDUCATE others on what the Catholic Church teaches about caring for our common home.
 
ADVOCATE for Catholic principles in climate change decisions, especially as they affect those who are poor and vulnerable.

In a project sponsored by the Creation Care Team and under the leadership of Middle School Science teacher, Katherine Alexander (pictured at left), the 7th grade students at Saint Pius X School built their own pinhole cameras last December. Over Christmas break, each student chose a unique location to mount their pinhole camera on December 21, the date of the Winter Solstice, which is the shortest day of the year.  The original plan was to have the students return their pinhole cameras to the school after the Vernal Equinox (the first day of Spring -- March 19) so that the images could be developed and displayed before the end of the school year.  As with so many things, that all changed when the Coronavirus pandemic brought an early and abrupt end to in-person classes.  Teachers and students alike quickly and successfully transitioned to e-learning and the decision was made to continue the project since they were no longer limited by the end of the school year!  All this time the pinhole cameras have been capturing images of the sun travelling across the sky, recording data about it's path, the weather, and the world. Students will take their pinhole cameras down on the day of the Summer Solstice, June 20, 2020 (the longest day of the year). The resulting images, also known as solargraphs, give each student a personal snapshot of a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience... the path of the sun -- from the shortest day of the year to the longest -- during this pandemic!

To find out more about solargraphs and learn how to make your own, visit https://www.nightwise.org/solargraphs