Environmental Scholarship

Growing up in Arizona, I learned early on to cherish the monsoons: the harsh winds, the sharp rain, and the occasional hail. Although my hometown of Tucson only gets about 5.7 inches of rain per monsoon season, it was always enough to flood streets and drench creosote bushes; their earthy smell would last for days. For me, the best part of the monsoons was never the actual rain, the creosote, or even the break from the 100-degree heat. It was the aftermath. The shallow flood that collected at the end of my street and ran to the park a couple of blocks down sparked a core memory from my childhood. My sisters and I called it “The Big Flood.” It was a tradition that we would stomp around in the water, race paper boats down the current, and of course, see who could get the most drenched in the stormwater. Over the years, as my sisters and I got older, the one thing that always stayed the same was that for the month of July, the end of our street was flooded with enough water to carry paper boats to the border of our neighborhood. No matter how old we were, “The Big Flood” was always there. The challenge came when the monsoons stopped. The rain fell more sporadically, the creosote didn’t have as strong a scent as before, the temperatures soared to well above 110 degrees, and “The Big Flood '' shrunk to puddles collecting near curbs. It was around this time I began learning about climate change and the impacts this has on my region; the Sonoran Desert. I learned that with climate change, the monsoons would become more infrequent, the heat index would continue to rise, and the bug season would get so much worse. This information horrified me. I’ve never been fond of change and to learn that in my lifetime I’ll witness the downfall of my home was a change I wasn’t prepared to face. And yet, I wanted to face it anyway. This challenge, although not uniquely mine, spurred me into action. Ever since learning about climate change in 7th grade, I’ve committed myself to the environmental movement. I’ve worked with numerous environmental organizations like the Sunrise Movement, Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for Future, and more to mobilize youth across Arizona and get them concerned about the environment. Doing this work has made me realize that this is how I want to spend the rest of my life. I want to finish my degrees in environmental studies and anthropology and go on to study environmental law and policy in order to create real comprehensive environmental change across the world.