As a future Conservation and Ecological Health major who is interested in incorporating a minor in Political Science into her academic resume, sustainability is a significant value of mine. This personal value stems from two parts of my story. First, my faith in a creative God who mandated Christians to care for His beautiful creation influenced how I approach sustainability with purpose. From the very beginning, this identity as a child of God strengthened my identity as a steward of creation of the real needs of the Lord’s people. Second, my unconventional upbringing as a third culture kid and missionary kid opened my eyes to the disparity of environmental impact. Living overseas in a developing nation allowed me to quickly develop an understanding that every choice we make today as an international community affects the least of us tomorrow. This is especially true when it comes to climate change and resource conservation. Together, these key elements of my story form the very foundation of the work that I hope to do and the things that I hope to accomplish! Throughout my high school experience, I learned more about what a career in sustainability could look like. Over the last three years in particular, this was accomplished through the Wildlife Leadership Academy's summer school programming. The Wildlife Leadership Academy (WLA) is a nonprofit organization that seeks to empower and equip high school aged students to become conservation ambassadors. After field school, students are encouraged to bring what they have learned about sustainability and equity back to their own communities. After field school, I was able to bring my passion for environmental science back to the classroom through my school's annual enrichment cluster program! Enrichment clusters are a truly special part of my school’s programming that engage students’ specific interests over a six to seven week period through hands-on learning and fun experiences. As a conservation ambassador, I was the first high school student to teach not one, but two clusters over the course of two years! For both clusters, I partnered with local businesses and designed lesson plans using the leadership skills I learned from my time at WLA. Thanks to WLA, I believe strongly in the power of environmental education, but also in environmental policy. Since it is only by reaching those in power today and tomorrow that we can hope to make a tangible difference, it is so important for individuals to understand the importance of sustainability across political, economic, and social issues. Although it can be easy to miss, sustainability is actually a field riddled with “win-win” situations, where an environmental solution actually solves multiple issues at once, even those that you would not expect. However, if our legislators are unaware of these hidden benefits, it is the responsibility of the individual to utilize our freedoms to make our priorities known. After college and the completion of my degree, there are multiple roads I could travel down when it comes to choosing a career, but sustainability remains a common thread. Whether I pursue a career in education or environmental policy like I mentioned previously, or even in a field like research or consulting, my work will always aim to emphasize the future quality of life of new generations and the longevity of resources for economic, recreational, environmental, and aesthetic purposes. Regardless of where I end up professionally, my desire is that sustainability will always be a key aspect of my story as I grow as an environmental steward on an international stage.

My name is Lucia Kiyomi Chase, and I was born in Chiang Mai, Thailand to missionary parents living in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. During the first season of their fifteen years overseas, my parents worked primarily in anti-child trafficking. Since I was very young, my parents instilled in me a value of service, especially when it comes to protecting the future of young people. This value extends now to how I view social justice issues, child exploitation, and most of all - protecting the resources that all future generations will depend on to fulfill their basic needs. In 2019, my family returned to the states to care for my aging grandparents. We spent a year in Seattle, Washington before moving again to Lancaster, Pennsylvania in the summer of 2020. These transitions presented a variety of unique challenges, including my grandfather's diagnosis with dementia and his eventual passing in October of 2024. Through it all, my family supported one another and had tireless faith that Lancaster was where we were meant to be for this season of life. The everlasting values of my childhood followed us to rural Pennsylvania from the other side of the Earth and outlasted the short-term, but uncomfortable and very real, pains of change. After moving to Lancaster, my passion for service and environmental sustainability quickly extended to my volunteer experience and my future career. Two years ago, I became involved in a summer camp program called the Wildlife Leadership Academy (WLA) where environmental professionals equip young adults to become conservation ambassadors in their own communities. As a conservation ambassador, I brought my knowledge back to Lancaster, completing numerous outreach projects including teaching two classes related to environmental science to younger students through my school’s enrichment cluster program! This summer, I will be returning to WLA as paid summer staff for the Bass Field School, where I hope to equip other students with the skills needed to make a difference and protect our natural resources for future generations. This fall, I plan to attend Wheaton College in Illinois to complete my undergraduate degree in Conservation and Ecological Health with a minor in Political Science. One day, I hope to pursue a career in the field of conservation and sustainability with a special emphasis on public policy and education. I want to engage young people to observe the world as a wonderful tapestry of creation that can only be protected when people of all different backgrounds come together to offer various perspectives to benefit others for years to come. Looking back, it is clear that the values inherited from my parents truly shaped who I am today, through the way they view people to the way they trust for real change through consistent humility and service. Even in hardship, they remind me that showing up to bless will always make a bigger difference than showing up to impress.

Throughout my senior year of high school, I experienced the near-constant learning curve of starting something new or practicing a new skill set. As I entered into new responsibilities and unfamiliar situations, I learned perseverance and persistence in order to be successful and complete tasks efficiently without allowing insecurity or self-consciousness to get the best of me. In 2023, I was employed at the Market at Oregon Dairy, a local family-owned grocery store. Oregon Dairy is where I overcame my fear of answering the phone, and it is also where I began training in my new role as front end supervisor this last summer. With this new role came the additional responsibilities of being assistant supervisor at the Oregon Dairy Farmstead events, notably the corn maze that runs in the fall. In both cases, I was responsible for proving starting and ending cash totals, managing employee schedules and breaks, and being the face of customer service. I was the first one there or the last one to leave every shift. Besides my new responsibilities at work, I also began my internship at Franklin & Marshall College’s vivarium around the same time. As part of my internship, I worked closely with a family of capuchin monkeys. As one may imagine, working with monkeys is not straightforward, nor is it a skill that comes easily to many people. This is something I would learn very quickly through my interactions with the capuchins. In addition to cleaning enclosures, fixing diet items, and administering morning medications, I also learned how to give one monkey her daily insulin injection. This task was so different from anything else I had ever done, and it took me some time for me to feel comfortable without supervision. Finally, in addition to all of these new opportunities, I started another job at a local construction company called Brubacher Excavating, where I now work as a part-time receptionist and administrative assistant. While there, I direct calls to relevant extensions; I am also solely responsible for going through statements and checking for missing invoices. Once again, I had to overcome my own self-consciousness and insecurity in order to best serve those around me. In each circumstance, I quickly learned to feel comfortable with the learning curves that come with entering into an unfamiliar environment when you begin to take on new skills through trial and error, and to be kind to myself when I make a mistake. And through all of these experiences, I learned just how blessed I am to be equipped with these skills as a high school student before entering into the workforce, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to learn in a safe and constructive environment.

I distinctly remember the smell of monsoon rains in Cambodia. During the rainy season, when the torrential rains would fall, the trees in the neighboring banana field would dance as they were buffeted by the wind and the frogs would sing us to sleep at night. From an early age, I knew that this place and its people I loved so much would be the first affected by climate change. This is the same climate change that is perpetuated every day by wealthy, developed countries that will not be affected until it is too late. Increasingly erratic weather patterns in the tropics is a global reality, one that contributes to food insecurity and destruction of livelihoods in areas where poverty already exists and can only be exacerbated. This compelling price of inaction demonstrates the importance of international cooperation. Climate change is an issue that knows no border, nor is it an environmental issue that will become a problem to address in the next decade; it is a public health crisis that has already begun. Instant gratification in the form of fossil fuels is tempting, but it is the responsibility of our legislators to prioritize the future over the present by mitigating factors contributing to the rapid rise of global warming through practical international cooperation. Even so, do not dismiss the actions of the individual. Two ways individuals can decrease their own carbon footprint is by eating less beef and dairy products and taking advantage of carpooling and public transportation. Finally, educating the next generation and exercising our civil liberties are perhaps the best ways to mitigate climate concerns and make a practical change to limiting our environmental impact, for it is only by reaching those in power today and tomorrow that we can hope to make a lasting difference.

I am a TCK (third culture kid) and MK (missionary kid) who grew up overseas in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, but I didn't know what it meant to live cross-culturally until I moved to rural Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Connection for TCK/MKs is such an important part of our identity, especially when it comes to where we differ with others. After all, when you are raised overseas away from your passport country, you begin to understand that it is truly our differences that make humanity beautiful. In Lancaster, my school experience was a monoculture in which my peers and teachers agreed on the majority of major cultural issues. As a kid who grew up surrounded by different cultures, worldviews, and perspectives, this was a jarring experience. In this kind of school environment, I swiftly learned the importance of knowing my audience. In my regular high school and dual enrollment college classes alike, I knew that whenever I stood up in front of my peers that it was my responsibility to communicate my point articulately without building unnecessary walls between me and my audience, especially if I disagreed with the standard perspective or take. When it came to discussing touchy political topics such as abortion, environmental policy, and campaign spending, I needed to understand exactly who I was speaking to in order to communicate effectively. In this way, each thesis was uniquely tailored to the demographic I was speaking to, and I found success knowing that I had represented myself well. As an employee at a local family-owned market, I also have the opportunity to consistently interact with people outside of academics. At work, there is significantly more diversity of thought than at school, and people are much more open about what they think and believe beyond the dominant train of thought. Some of the most meaningful connections I ever made are with my coworkers, many of whom are my age or younger and many of whom have already experienced what my family calls "church hurt." These are individuals who have had Jesus misrepresented to them in a way that harms them emotionally, spiritually, and sometimes even physically. Often, my coworkers' relationship with the Lord is tied up in generational trauma and negative experiences with their own family members or upbringing. Others have never been members of the church, but are distrustful or suspicious of the church due to the current political climate or their own modern archetype of what it looks like to be a Christian in America, the kind of person associated with hate speech, intolerance, and fundamentalism. With this kind of background, it is only natural that my coworkers would be distrustful of someone who identified themselves as a Christian. I know that many of them would feel judgement from me, and others would feel unsafe to talk about certain topics in my presence. I know that my faith can be a stumbling block for some, and yet I found it coming up in conversation so often that I had to acknowledge it. In this way, I decided that when it would come up in conversation, I would introduce my faith in this way, very intentionally: "I am a Christian. I am proud of my faith, but I am not proud of some of the things my faith is associated with." Instantly, any wall that existed or could have existed dematerialized and suddenly I could have a meaningful conversation with my coworkers unhindered by pre-perceived judgement or disapproval. Suddenly, nuance was allowed into our conversations. Understanding your audience through creative curiosity and by allowing room for nuance is the best way that I have found to connect with people of different perspectives and ideologies, and it is a strategy that will follow me beyond my high school career as I begin college. After school, I plan to attend Wheaton College in Illinois for an undergraduate degree in Conservation and Ecological Health with a minor in Political Science. These are both fields of study that depend on the fostering of helpful conversations at the intersection of a diverse variety of issues. I hope to bring my curiosity to my professional career to hopefully make an impact through my work and in the lives touched by representing myself and my faith well in a world full of nebulous confusion and vague labels. After all, you always have more to gain by focusing on what brings people together rather than what tears us apart.

As a child raised in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, one of our houses overlooked a banana field. During the rainy season, when the torrential rains would fall, the trees would dance as they were buffeted by the wind and the frogs would sing us to sleep at night. I grew up with a curiosity about all living things, and although I now live surrounded by corn fields in rural Lancaster, Pennsylvania, this curiosity born in Southeast Asia still manifests today through my academics. This fall, I plan to attend Wheaton College in Illinois for an undergraduate degree in Conservation and Ecological Health with a minor in Political Science. Although my passion for ecology and public policy has always been in the shadow of my childhood love of zoology, animal behavior, and storytelling, it has recently evolved into my primary interest after reading "Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet" by Ben Goldfarb my sophomore year. Although Goldfarb writes primarily about the cost to native ecosystems and biodiversity due to wildlife-vehicle collisions there is also the hidden cost of unexpected vehicle repair, medical bills, and even the loss of human life. Before reading "Crossings," I was not very interested in the human element of conservation, but this immediately changed after I realized how interconnected both issues are. In this way, "Crossings" was the book that made the vastly important but commonly overlooked connection between the impact of our decisions on not only wildlife, but also humans. This desire to look at the bigger picture and improve circumstances for the world around us and those who live in it drove me to do my own research in other areas of environmental concern. For instance, I found that climate change, although propagated primarily by wealthy developed nations, will disproportionately affect those in developing nations along the Equator. Having lived in a third-world country on the Equator and witnessed poverty first hand, I will be the first to recognize how devastating any change in climate severity could be. Erratic weather patterns could destroy entire livelihoods, and have already done so numerous times in recent years in quick succession due to the decisions we made yesterday and continue to make today and tomorrow. Those who perpetuate the majority of fossil fuel emissions will not see the effects of climate change until temperatures rise exponentially, agriculture stalls in the tropics, and thousands lose their homes due to increased flash flooding and extreme weather events. In this way, climate change is not only an environmental issue that will become a problem to address in the next decade; it is a public health crisis that has already begun. One way individuals can decrease their own carbon footprint is by eating less beef and dairy products. The cattle and dairy industry that produces these products is perhaps the biggest contributor to carbon emissions in the United States. Although we already eat beef very seldomly, my family does rely on dairy products such as milk, cheese, and yogurt as an integral part of our regular diets, so we could limit our carbon footprint by finding healthy alternatives to these products. Another way to mitigate our carbon footprint would be to take public transportation or carpool as much as we can to limit vehicle emissions. Finally, educating the next generation and exercising our civil liberties are perhaps the best ways to mitigate climate concerns and make a practical change to limiting our environmental impact, for it is only by reaching those in power today and tomorrow that we can hope to make a lasting difference.

There is a photo. One day in 2016, my bedroom window was radiant with morning sun, with the curtains pulled back and a little girl hunched over her paper and pen, lost in her imagination. When my father walked upstairs that morning, he found me there, his little girl with a story to tell. There is one photo, but there were many mornings and many, many stories. Despite all my best efforts, I still have yet to finish a single one of those stories. Every morning invited a new idea. Although my passion for writing has since shifted from creative storytelling to effective communication (in part due to my inability to finish anything), the two have more in common than one thinks. First and foremost, the writer needs to understand their audience. Then, they need to write a story that makes sense to the audience and their own personal experiences, no matter how foreign the concept is. A story could take place in the catacombs of a steampunk mountain civilization while the focus of a policy proposal could be the potential implementation of clean energy systems at a fracking well in the middle of rural Texas. Both instances require a whole lot of imagination, and they require it from both the writer and the reader. Both instances can make an impact: the fantasy story about steampunk inventions could inspire some little girl to become an engineer; the written proposal could change an entire community. I love how essential writing is to communicating thoughts, beliefs, and ideas. Communication is a skill that transcends boundaries and connects people from various perspectives to accomplish goals that would not be possible to achieve in regular conversations. Especially in today’s world, where verbal discussion is growing in importance with the advent of AI writing systems, we cannot forget the importance of the human mind in written word. Especially in today’s world, where our culture of cooperation often better resembles a culture of division, we cannot forget the importance of the thoughtful communication of ideas. While I pursue a degree in sustainability studies and conservation with a minor in either political science or international affairs, my written word will become all the more important and these concerns will become all the more relevant. That little girl sitting at her bedroom window in 2016 had no idea what kind of impact her words could make. If I am completely honest, the 17-year-old girl sitting at her desk in 2025 has no idea either. The difference is that the 17-year-old is equipped with the understanding that her words can make an impact, the drive to use those words to solve problems, and the heart to pursue greater understanding between people. I want to use writing to make a difference and someday, down the road, make my 17-year-old self proud. I want to start something, and see it finished.