As a competitive swimmer juggling school and practice there was no time for a paid job throughout high school. The summer brought another set of challenges with double practices and a busy competition schedule on the weekends. In lieu of a paid summer job I chose to give back to my community as a volunteer swim coach. I have so many fond memories of the two summers I swam with my community team. It fostered some great friendships and allowed me to discover my own passion for swimming. It is an honor to help the next generation in the hopes that a few discover the same passion. I plan to attend Auburn University in the fall to study Exercise Science and will be on the swim team. Growing up as an athlete, the bodies movement is important to me. My ultimate goal is to become a travel physical therapist and help patients around the world that may not have access to rehabilitative care that they need. With the combination of my passion for travel and my education in physical therapy, I hope to make an impact on the world’s health disparities.

For the past 11 years of my life, I have dedicated myself to a sport that has changed my life. My name is Amie Perna and I am a competitive swimmer. Around the age of 7, my mom signed me up for the community swim team, Kidds Springs Sailfish, and it didn’t take long for me to fall in love with the sport. As soon as I dive into the water the world goes quiet. That’s what I love about it. Not only is it peaceful and serene, but it’s a chance to think and get away from the busy life that followed me throughout the day. The water gives you a rare moment of clarity and calmness, where your only worry is the rhythm of your breathing and the movement of your body. But that’s not the only thing that swimming has brought me. It has brought me a passion for helping other athletes. Throughout my 11 years of swimming, I have seen and experienced many injuries which have influenced my aspirations. With ambitions to become a physical therapist, I have made it my goal to help athletes overcome the battle of injuries and get back into the sport they love. I understand the physical and emotional toll that injuries can take and have become committed to alleviating this for others. Countless hours of training and competition have taught me persistence, patience, and resilience which are not only vital for sports but also equally applicable to my future career as a physical therapist. With this, the challenges that I may face can easily be transformed into new opportunities for growth and learning. Although I don’t express it much, I have a massive love for creating art. I rarely have time to sit down and draw or paint, but when I have the chance, I take advantage of it. I love being challenged to create new things. Most of my creativity is evident in my schoolwork, turning simple 5-minute school projects into a night of molding clay and detailed painting. Similar to art, I also express interest in baking. This interest started when I was younger but sparked during the COVID-19 pandemic. Confined in my home, I discovered a joy in baking and the creativity that came along with it. Every day, I would make something new, turning my kitchen into a laboratory for culinary experiments. Baking has brought me closer to many of my friends, as we spend our Friday nights baking recipes that we found online. Both art and baking have evolved into a significant part of my identity and have enriched my life with a new sense of creativity. Allowing me to express myself uniquely and share that expression with others.

Innovative ideas that are capable of driving positive change for our nation and benefitting future generations is an important topic for this generation's youth. Although there are many ways of improving our society, I believe that the United States education system has one of the largest needs for improvement. Some different ways to improve our schools are providing opportunities for outdoor learning and social gathering along with opportunities for kids to discover new passions and interests that can benefit their mental health. COVID-19 brought a lot of public awareness to the mental health of kids, but the reality is that many struggled socially and emotionally long before March 2020. Between video games and phones, teens are currently spending an average of 8.5 hours per day on screens and tweens are not far behind at 5.5 hours daily. Today, childhood is spent mostly indoors, watching television, playing video games, and searching the internet. This shift to an indoor childhood has caused a huge decline in spontaneous outdoor activities such as bike riding, swimming, and hiking in nature. In addition, parents are concerned about the safety of their children and often limit their options to go outside and play. This new sedentary lifestyle has made it very apparent that technology can negatively affect children's developing social skills, causing more children to be socially awkward, withdrawn, shy, or intimidated by social situations. Swimming has allowed me to stay active and makes me appreciate the importance of not only exercise, but also the social interactions and friendships that I have developed over the years. I was also fortunate enough to attend an Montessori elementary schools where much of the focus was on outdoor education and experiences that allowed me to connect with nature, my peers, and my schoolwork. As a competitive athlete I also feel very fortunate to have found a passion for something that keeps me focused and driven. Passion is another important aspect of childhood development, as it provides the drive that gets kids going and engages their creativity, their persistence, and ultimately their happiness. Instead of turning to my devices during quarantine, I worked with my dad to build my own backyard weight room and figured out how to turn his work trailer into an outdoor swimming pool so I could continue to train and more importantly get outdoors away from my devices. I watched many of my friends that didn’t have activities they were passionate about outside school struggle during this period. They were online during the day for school and then turned to their devices at night with very little interaction and no extracurricular activities to focus on. Many of them developed mental health issues and eating disorders that carried with them well beyond quarantine. I realize that I may be highly passionate about swimming and some other kids may be much more low-key when it comes to their interests, but it is important that all kids find something they enjoy and want to do. With respect to these two topics, I have a couple of innovative ideas that could drive positive change for our nation and benefit future generations. Firstly, many schools, particularly public schools, do not offer opportunities for outdoor learning. From a public health perspective, outdoor learning can have huge benefits for children, teachers, communities, and society and help to reverse some of the side effects related to the sedentary lifestyles we are becoming accustomed to. Research has shown that outdoor learning boosts confidence, social skills, communication, motivation, physical skills, knowledge and understanding. It has also been found to boost children’s self-esteem, self-confidence, ability to work cooperatively and have a positive attitude to learning. I had the benefit of going to an elementary school that offered lots of opportunities for outdoor learning, but during middle school and high school those opportunities decreased significantly. In fact, most middle school and high school campuses lack trees for shade, outdoor classrooms for teaching, and outdoor seating for social gathering. By providing some of these amenities in schools and focusing fiscal budgets on improving outdoor environments, outdoor learning can be a vehicle to address some of the societal health challenges of our time. Secondly, a common problem in the education system today is that schools don’t provide enough opportunities for students to discover and develop their interests or passions outside of the classroom in school. So much time and money are put into standardized testing that funds and time set aside for creative school programs such as art, music, theatre, and various clubs that allow students to explore different interests and immerse themselves in something they are passionate about are removed. Many times, the opportunities that are offered in schools, particularly in sports, are so competitive with requirements to try out that your average child cannot even make the team leaving the only option to be programs outside of school that can be very expensive for parents. Many of the sports opportunities outside school are limited as they are also highly competitive by the time you reach high school age limiting opportunities for everyone to participate. Families shouldn’t be forced to pay money towards activities that could be provided within our education system. Finding something that a child is passionate about can be extremely rewarding to them and keeps them engaged and being engaged ultimately makes learning easier. The United States education system is failing our youth, and it is important to implement new ideas to change schools in order to benefit our generation and future generations. Both these ideas could drastically help to improve the mental health of our youth and in the long run would allow us to try and get ahead of some of the mental health issues and challenges that schools, and their counsellors are facing today. Many parents, like mine, have strived to find these resources in private education but for our nation to make an impactful change these resources need to be offered and prioritized in public schools for the betterment of future generations.