I spent nearly every day in the summer of 2025 watching penguins glide over my head. As a volunteer at the Detroit Zoo, it was my responsibility to set up “education stations” throughout their exhibits— even if it meant braving the freezing cold of the penguin habitats. The cold air was refreshing on the hot days of midwest summer, but my favorite part of the walk was passing through the tunnel: an acrylic walkway that allowed guests to watch the animals swim right above them. Every time I took a trip through the tunnel, I’d stop to watch the bubbles release from their feathers as they shot like jets through the water, which was the penguins’ unique way of propelling themselves. Learning by observation was something I instructed the children around the zoo to practice, but doing it on my own with zoo animals is what solidified my passion for marine conservation; however, this interest wasn’t anything new. I’d always fought for climate justice, even when I was only seven years old forming a clean-up crew in my elementary school and fussing at my parents for littering. I dreamt of working in a rehabilitation center with turtles and seals, and spending my free days volunteering on beaches with a litter picker— a rather unusual aspiration for a second grader, but I wasn’t ashamed of it. In fact, I now embrace it and have built my entire future around it. In the present, working in The Marine Mammal Center in conservation medicine is my biggest goal. The MMC has multiple locations throughout California and Hawai’i for sick/injured animal rehab and ecology research, offers youth education programs through field trips and classroom curriculum, and host thousands of volunteers annually: their organization would give me the best environment for growth in the field of oceanography and conservation. Since thoroughly researching the Center, I have created a stepping-stone path for my career: After attending a university in California as planned, I hope to begin my work as an intern at the MMC before graduating with a B.S. in Marine Biology. Thereafter, I’ll either join the workforce or enroll in veterinary school to become a WAVMA-certified aquatic veterinarian. My dream, at the end of this journey, is to join the aquatic center’s research team and gain hands-on experience with animal rescues and oceanography research. Without volunteering at the zoo and watching other children fall in love with nature, I never would have decided on a career path. I’ve watched my affinity for marine animals and environmental science blossom over the years, and I’ll continue to use my education to propel myself forward like a penguin in the depths, educating the generations to come.

My favorite invention within the past ten years is the Eco-Shoreline Project, a project led by Dr. Janet Chan and Professor Kenneth Leung of Hong Kong. The project, based in China, is the first trial in the country aimed to promote biodiversity of aquatic life on the coasts. Over the course of five years, Dr. Chan, Professor Leung, and their research assistants designed small tiles and blocks out of concrete– but these tiles and blocks have intricate curvatures and patterns and serve multiple purposes. For example, the “multi-positional” armouring units are small concrete shapes with one large hole on top to serve as an artificial tidal pool so small animals can cool off in hot weather, and multiple small holes scattered on the sides that can substitute as a nearby habitat for these creatures; the MP armouring unit is also shaped like a pyramid, with the tip of the structure facing the ocean and taking the place of wave breakers. This entire project and the resulting inventions are my favorite from the last decade because it and its variants exhibit 1) a small but highly impactful way to reverse the decrease in biodiversity of the ocean caused by climate change, and 2) the possibility of inventions like this being deployed worldwide. Each and every one of the formations Dr. Chan and Professor Leung’s team has deployed is multi-purpose, serving the best interests of both native marine life and the citizens, a feat which is fascinating and ingenious to me. This fascination has also served as inspiration for my own career plans. Through my studies and my career, I hope to become a marine biologist, a position in which I’d measure biodiversity in saltwater reservoirs and how marine fauna interact with their environment. If I work at a marine rehabilitation center, I will even be able to combine my skills of testing and observing the environment with helping stranded or wounded animals; I aspire to transition into becoming a certified veterinarian later on in my career so I can perform more complex medical treatments on domesticated animals, exotic land animals, and aquatic animals. I have always thought it was unfair that the environments we live in should suffer due to humans and industrialization. As a child, I sacrificed my half-hour recess from third to fifth grade and walked around the playground, picking plastic bags and papers out of the grass surrounding the slides instead. By fifth grade, I had scheduled a meeting with my school principal to turn my one-man plan into a committee and recruited 20 of my classmates to join my effort in cleaning and recycling. By June of 2018, when I graduated from elementary, a piece of plastic could only be found on the playground once every three months. This plan has been brewing since my youth and has shown– and will show– in my actions. This plan for my career path is fueled by higher education and packed with love for living creatures and nature itself around the world. My motivations and academic endeavors can lead me to opportunities with which I contribute to research about effects of global warming on animals’ ecology– the study of how they interact with their environment– and have the chance to save the lives of animals who have ingested or otherwise become impaired or sick due to pollution. My only goal is to help.

I am Kennedy Shaw, a 15-year-old girl. I am like every other teen girl in America, affected by the standards pressed into my skin and engraved into my brain by everyone around me, whether I like it or not. I have been interested in science since I was in fifth grade; working in a field that allowed me to learn AND help others sounded magical to me. At first, being a veterinarian was the dream but losing a pet patient was something I realized I wouldn't be able to bear. Then I wanted to be a forensic psychologist; then, for a few months, a lawyer; then an experimental psychologist. But lately, I learned that I just want to do whatever I can to help others with what I've taken the time to learn. I want to use the knowledge I acquire to help people without that same knowledge. So, my dream job is to somehow address and work to solve one of the biggest social issues right now: the issue of social media and the pressure it puts on women and men alike. Standards of how we should behave and look are pushed on everyone, especially women, and I experience the stress of this; body dysmorphia, eating disorders, and jealousy. These standards divide people in societies and ruin mental health. These expectations, the bullying that comes along with not conforming, and even the affection that people show through a screen when you do conform is killing people from the inside out. I want to work to find a way to get rid of this horrible effect social media platforms have on adolescents and adults. People are sometimes even encouraged via cyberbullying to commit suicide on a live stream. People are becoming desensitized to the pain of others and become so closely acquainted with suicide that they bait others into watching brutal suicide videos they love watching themselves. Disgusting behavior like this is a direct result of human societies changing from something as seemingly insignificant as an application on a smartphone, and is evidence of a "pipeline" to violent disorders. According to the CDC, both male and female suicide rates have been on an incline since 2010, when social media became easily accessible on mobile devices (Instagram launched in 2010, Snapchat launched in 2011). Male suicide rates are always around four times higher than those of women, but social media contributes to this too and I want to eliminate any factors I can to help.

Minorities’ feelings in America and on the internet are constantly belittled and even joked about by those that are not us, especially when it comes to the feelings of Black people. We see these so-called jokes and react or respond, and our responses are misread, our feelings disregarded and discarded. It has been proven time and time again: our mindsets and experiences as people of color cannot truly be understood by someone who is not us. Many of these experiences, whether they happen directly to one person or an entire city of Black people, will be broadcasted and shared across news channels and networks in every crevice of the United States; hearing a new report of the suffering of your own community every time you open social media or switch the television on takes a toll on you. I would know. Over the course of the pandemic, especially in the year 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement exploded in popularity and, consequently, supporters. But this bomb of exposure for the civil rights movement also popularized statements that were against BLM, saying it was a terrorist group, it’s anti-white, promotes Black supremacy, etc. and horrible insults were thrown by racists towards any black person who openly supported the movement. African Americans nationwide watched more and more stories of our community’s pain and abuse every day. A hate-fueled insult or action that directly affects even one Black person indirectly affects the entire Black community. The racists who commit these acts do not care; the person they came after was the target, and we are simply collateral. Imagine a young black child watching an innocent black man be killed daily. We sat on our phones all day during the quarantine, watching the chaos unravel in the streets. Protesters came in crowds, and police came with tear gas. On a loop, the bodycam footage of Breonna Taylor’s death replayed, along with George Floyd’s and so many others. Believe it or not, George Floyd was not the first Black person to have to tell a violent police officer that he couldn’t breathe. Eric Garner, killed in 2014, spoke the same words as he was put in a chokehold during his arrest. I live in constant fear George Floyd will not be the last. I remember the first time I watched a man of my own race be brutally killed by police. I was young, probably nine. My nana liked to watch the news day and night, and I eventually got used to watching it all the time. But that time it was different– there was a video, and screaming from a baby and a woman just the same. A Black man was shot by a fearful and trigger-happy White police officer while his girlfriend and child were in the car. Ever since then I’ve been more aware of the movement and more anxious at the thought of my father being stopped by a White officer. As we are filled with anxiety toward one of the most common forms of law enforcement, we as African American teenagers and young adults carry the burden of our history on our backs. A history that is bountiful with wonderful progression and dedication, but also the knowledge that this progression and dedication had to be made because of our oppression and discrimination. We are sandwiched between the older generation, who can be painfully dismissive of our pain, and the younger generation, who are too small to comprehend the full extent of racism and its system. We are stuck in the middle, and are therefore a mentality misread. Our entire race is stuck in this position, a position where we are able to be pushed lower and lower by the race-led society of America. A lot of us are pushed into being products of the environments we are raised in, the environments we experience. Pushed to fit into the tight boxes of stereotypes and generalizations. We have to break the cycle. We have to excel at what we do when we have the ability to excel. Nobody is going to do it for us. That’s the way we’re pushed to think. And it’s true, no one is going to do anything for us. But we live in a nation, in a world, where we either rise above everyone else in the competition or are completely left behind. Stand out as absolute perfection or reach a tie for first place and be swept under the rug. This was not a writing piece that was meant to sum up the mindset and pain of Black people (especially the youth), but to sum up the mindset and power of White societies; societies that were built by White people, for White people. And for us to be able to lessen the effect of racists in power, we have to understand how they rule the country. These White societies try to make “bird’s nest” comments about Black women's hair seem unimportant, and George Floyd jokes seem comical. They make the emotional health of BIPOC seem irrelevant. Every single feeling I’ve mentioned, whether good or bad, and every realization about the history of African American culture is something I’ve experienced. As I got older, I realized more and more things I’ve gone through were fueled by racist minds. It’s hurt me beyond words and I have unfortunately had to adjust and persevere, because I know it won’t stop any time soon. Before getting used to it, I would wish to be a blonde haired white girl, either because another White boy went too far with what he said whilst rejecting me for being Black, or because my old White neighbors two doors down called the police and lied about my family for the fourth time in two months. There is a stigma or joke around Black mental health that we don’t “do” depression because we’re Black. Really, that only makes it more likely.