On Friday afternoon, Steamboat Springs High School students will make their way to the Historic Routt County Courthouse lawn where they hope to make a statement about the climate.

“A bunch of students from the high school are going for the fourth and eighth periods of the day to spend some time on the courthouse lawn and raise awareness about climate change,” said Shea Speer, a co-president of the Steamboat Springs High School Eco Club. “We’re going to have a sign-making activity, then we’re going to hold our signs by the road and maybe do a few chants.”

Speer said she believes the high school’s Eco Club started hosting events four or five years ago to bring attention to climate change and its impacts on the younger generation. Since then, students in the Eco Club have been meeting and holding two events each year that bring attention to climate change issues, with one taking place in the fall and another during the winter.

Last winter, the group built snowmen on the courthouse lawn and had them hold signs to bring attention to the cause.

The Eco Club organizes projects and events that empower students and community members to advance local actions that align with sustainability.

The Eco Club is led by Speer and co-presidents Janie Gonzales, Novella Light and Hanna Hale. She is hoping to get at least 15-20 students for the event, which begins at 2 p.m. when the Eco Club will gather in the commons at the high school. From there, the group will make their way to the courthouse lawn at Fifth Street and Lincoln Avenue, where they be welcoming members of the community to join them as they display signs and wave at passing traffic.

“It was four or five years ago that the Eco Club started at the high school, and we’ve been organizing a protest in the fall and in the spring every year since,” Speer said. “We know that climate change is going to have a profound impact on the future of our generation, so we just bring it up every fall and spring just to be sure that the discussion about climate action continues.”