I've never been athletic, but in tenth grade I decided I should at least try to be. So, I chose the sport that required the least amount of coordination: long distance running. My high school doesn't have a sports program, so I joined a local running group called Students Off and Running (SOAR). With SOAR, I ran around twenty miles a week in preparation to run the LA Marathon, which I completed in 2019. This particular race was the Hollywood Run, where I won first place for my age group. This run was absolutely exhilarating.

One of the most memorable mornings of my life began three hours from my home, across from a McDonalds, waiting for hours to be able to watch a masterclass with the artist I'd looked up to for years: Yo-Yo Ma. As a cellist, Yo-Yo Ma has always been a magnificent inspiration, not only because of his stellar musicianship, but also because of his kind teaching style and emphasis he places on the symbiosis between the arts and the sciences. He teaches that music helps the brain in entirely different ways, allowing people to think distinctly and more critically because of musical training. Yo-Yo Ma, a graduate of both a cello and anthropology degree, inspired me to pursue a double degree in Cello Performance and Environmental Science at UCLA.

I was in the hardest class I’d ever taken; Mandarin 101 at my local community college. Our teacher, Lam Tai, was helping us review for a test we had the following week with a Kahoot. I was fifteen, and this was hour two of the three hour class. The questions flashed by, but not in pinyin, like I’d practiced. These were complete sentences in Mandarin and I had absolutely no clue what they meant. The sentences, seemingly never ending, seemed to grow increasingly more complicated. I continued entering my random guesses into the Kahoot as I became more and more flustered. I felt a pressure in my ears, like there was a crowd of people right next to me which existed only in my mind. My hands clammed and my heart shook so violently I thought it might fall out of my chest. I focused all my energy into preventing myself from crying. But the tears built and built, and then the dam broke, and I started silently succumbing to the droplets that fell rapidly from my blinking eyes. My friend, Dean, turned his head to look at me, most likely to make some witty remark about the picture the teacher had chosen for that particular question. In an instant, his face dropped to one of concern. “We gotta get you out of here,” he said. He helped me out of my seat and guided me out of the room. “You’re just having a panic attack. It’s going to be fine.” He assured me. We found ourselves on a bench outside of the class. The students at our school endearingly called the building we were in “The Dungeon.” I thought it was fitting. Of course the place I broke down was the dungeon. “In…. out…..” Dean prompted. “You’ll feel so much better once you have your breathing under control.” I breathed in, then out, then in, then out. I felt my heart, just a minute before beating so rapidly, start to relax in my chest. Dean walked back to the classroom to retrieve the water. “Here, it’ll help.” He said. It did. I was feeling calmer, and those characters I didn’t know didn’t seem like such a life and death situation. While I was getting my bearing, Dean told me a story. I don’t remember what it was about or who it involved, but I remember how it made me feel. I felt comforted, and not alone, and almost ready to face the world again. He sat with me through the entire ordeal, which was a profound act of kindness. I will never forget what Dean did that day. I don’t think he even understands what an impact it had on me. I’d never experienced a panic attack before, and I am incredibly grateful he was able to identify it and had the skill set to guide me through it. He displaced me from a stressful situation into one where I felt safe and could recoup. His kindness that day will stay in my mind forever and is something I am incredibly grateful for.

In my first two years of high school, I experienced a lot of eco anxiety. I was afraid of humanity’s future because of the effects of climate change I experienced firsthand. I live in California and have evacuated a few times because of the recent fires and have seen much of the greenery burn to a crisp in a matter of days. The fires left me with the feeling of loss for the nature I once knew was suddenly gone. I knew other people must have similar emotions, so I researched and stumbled upon a new word: solastalgia. It pertains to the deep feeling of loss caused by climate catastrophes. I realized this feeling of solastalgia was the root of my anxiety, so I set out to try and ease it by helping the climate crisis as much as I could. I began volunteering at a compost hub called Cottonwood Urban Farm. The first time I stumbled upon this volunteer opportunity, I felt as if I had found a hidden oasis. As I opened the gate, I sniffed the earthy scent of compost. It was a rich, sour, thick smell that was somehow comforting. I turned and saw two compost piles about ten feet long and three feet high actively steaming. The owner of the farm, Elliot, rushed to greet me and put me to work straightaway on the compost piles. There was a stack of about fifty buckets filled with food waste, and I worked on emptying them onto the pile. The other volunteer and I spread a thin layer of food waste on the top of the pile, and then covered that with a layer of dried leaves and branches to form a sort of demented layered cake. That was all I did that first day, but my interest had peaked. I returned for three hours every week for over a year. Some days, I was the only volunteer and other days there would be twenty or so people ready to help. Some days I sifted compost by straining the piled compost through a sifter to sort out random garbage and chunks. This was followed by dumping the compost in the worm bins where the worm castings made the soil into “black gold.” Other days I trained new volunteers, fed maggots to the ducks, collected eggs, and pruned trees. Within this year, I realized I loved composting because it felt like I was tangibly making a difference by diverting these food scraps from the landfill. After I had a bit of experience under my belt, I decided to bring composting to my school, so I founded a club called Seeds of Change. I worked with the principal and found a team of like minded individuals to organize my school's first compost program. My team collected food scraps every Friday in receptacles, composted them on site, and used the compost in our club garden. Eventually, other schools heard about this project and asked for insight on starting similar programs. This allowed my team and I to lead composting workshops at these schools, namely CalArts and neighboring elementary schools. I continue leading this club over Zoom weekly to over twenty members about different environmental topics. Because of these sustainable strides my club has made, I feel as if I am contributing to the climate solution and helping others do the same. My experiences have taught me that people want to help slow the climate crisis, but are unsure since the problem is so daunting. However, every person can make a difference, no matter how small.

In my first two years of high school, I experienced a lot of eco anxiety. I was afraid of humanity’s future because of the effects of climate change I experienced firsthand. I live in California and have evacuated a few times because of the recent fires and have seen much of the greenery burn to a crisp in a matter of days. The fires left me with the feeling of loss for the nature I once knew was suddenly gone. I knew other people must have similar emotions, so I researched and stumbled upon a new word: solastalgia. It pertains to the deep feeling of loss caused by climate catastrophes. I realized this feeling of solastalgia was the root of my anxiety, so I set out to try and ease it by helping the climate crisis as much as I could. I began volunteering at a compost hub where food scraps churned into compost. I realized I loved composting because it felt like I was tangibly making a difference by diverting these food scraps from the landfill. I decided to bring this composting to my school, so I founded a club called Seeds of Change. My team collected food scraps every Friday in receptacles, composted them on site, and used the compost in our club garden. Eventually, other schools heard about this project and asked for insight on starting similar programs, allowing my team to lead composting workshops at these schools. Because of these sustainable strides my club has made, I feel as if I am contributing to the climate solution and helping others do the same. My experiences have taught me that people want to help slow the climate crisis, but are unsure since the problem is daunting. However, every person can make a difference, no matter how small.

My sophomore year of high school was constantly interrupted quite often by forest fires, which had never happened before. I began researching the reasons behind it and eventually fell down a rabbit hole of environmental issues. I read about fires, melting polar ice caps, food waste, the dangers of capitalism, and how dangerous the trajectory of the human race was. Naturally, I felt massive waves of eco anxiety and was terrified of the future. However, after weeks of reflection, I realized the only way out of this grim future was productive action. So, I began searching for a tangible way to help the planet, which I found at Cottonwood Urban Farm. The first time I stumbled upon this volunteer opportunity, I felt as if I had found a hidden oasis. As I opened the gate, I saw two compost piles about ten feet long and three feet high that were actively steaming. The owner of the farm put me to work on the compost piles. There was a stack of about fifty buckets filled with food waste that I worked on emptying them onto the pile. I spread a thin layer of food waste on the top of the pile, and then covered with a layer of dried leaves and branches to form a sort of demented layered cake. This was all I did the first day, but my interest had peaked, so I continued returning every Saturday for over a year. Some days I sifted compost by straining it through a sifter to sort out random garbage and chunks. This was followed by dumping the compost in the worm bins where the worm castings made the soil into “black gold.” Other days I trained new volunteers, fed maggots to the ducks, collected eggs, and pruned trees. While composting in itself does not seem like such a radical idea, widespread composting would drastically cut down greenhouse gas emissions. I found more than 30% of garbage thrown in landfills is food waste, so composting diverts this food waste from the landfill, thus preventing more greenhouse gasses from being trapped in the atmosphere. Because of this massive benefit of composting, I wanted to share my newfound knowledge with my community, so I co-founded a club at my school called Seeds of Change that focuses on education regarding climate change with an emphasis on composting. These past two years I have planned lectures, organized a school wide compost system, and delivered workshops to neighboring schools. I have also been working with my local government to try and implement a city wide compost hub, which would drastically cut down the environmental footprint of my community. Because of my volunteer experiences, I have overcome my fear of the future and I hope to continue this line of work as my career. I plan on completing a major in environmental studies with an emphasis on policy. After I complete my bachelors, I will attend law school, after which I hope to follow a career in environmental law so that I can fight for a sustainable world where human kind are able to give as much as we take. One particular area I am interested in fighting for is the environmental regulations for large corporations. Many companies seem to only have a mind for profit instead of their employees and the planet. They profit from mining or manufacturing and have detrimental tolls on the environment that need to be remedied as soon as possible. Environmentalism and climate change are such massive issues that they are often glazed over in the government because of how looming and frightening they are. However, we as a society cannot continue pushing these issues under a rug. Nay, we must face them head on, and I hope to be part of that movement towards a sustainable economy.

My sophomore year of high school was constantly interrupted by forest fires, which had never happened before. So, I began researching the reasons behind it and eventually fell down a rabbit hole of environmental issues. I read about fires, melting polar ice caps, food waste, the dangers of capitalism, and how dangerous the trajectory of the human race was. Naturally, I felt massive waves of eco anxiety and was terrified of the future. However, after weeks of reflection, I realized the only way out of this grim future was productive action. So, I began searching for a tangible way to help the planet, which I found at Cottonwood Urban Farm. The first time I stumbled upon this volunteer opportunity, I felt as if I had found a hidden oasis. As I opened the gate, I saw two compost piles about ten feet long and three feet high actively steaming. The owner of the farm put me to work on the compost piles. There was a stack of about fifty buckets filled with food waste that I worked on emptying them onto the pile. I spread a thin layer of food waste on the top of the pile, and then covered with a layer of dried leaves and branches to form a sort of demented layered cake. This was all I did the first day, but my interest had peaked, so I continued returning every Saturday for over a year to help compost the community's organic waste. While composting in itself does not seem like such a radical idea, widespread composting would drastically cut down greenhouse gas emissions. I found more than 30% of garbage thrown in landfills is food waste, so composting diverts this food waste from the landfill, thus preventing more greenhouse gasses from being trapped in the atmosphere. Because of this massive benefit of composting, I wanted to share my newfound knowledge with my community, so I co-founded a club at my school called Seeds of Change that focuses on education regarding climate change with an emphasis on composting. These past two years I have planned lectures, organized a school wide compost system, and delivered workshops to neighboring schools. I have also been working with my local government to try and implement a city wide compost hub, which would drastically cut down the environmental footprint of my community. Because of my volunteer experiences, I hope to continue this line of work as my career. I plan on completing a major in environmental studies with an emphasis on policy. After I complete my bachelors, I will attend law school, after which I hope to follow a career in environmental law so that I can fight for a sustainable world where human kind are able to give as much as we take. One particular area I am interested in fighting for is the environmental regulations for large corporations. Many companies seem to only have a mind for profit instead of their employees and the planet. They profit from mining or manufacturing and have detrimental tolls on the environment that need to be remedied as soon as possible. Environmentalism and climate change are such massive issues that they are often glazed over in the government because of how looming and frightening they are. However, we as a society cannot continue pushing these issues under a rug. Nay, we must face them head on, and I hope to be part of that movement towards a sustainable economy.

Being heavily involved in one's community brings a sense of purpose and allows a person to explore their passions productively alongside others who share their interests. In my case, volunteering helped me uncover my passion and help me decide my future aspirations. I spent my first two years of high school trying out different avenues of volunteer work, trying to find the niche I felt strongly about. I tried making blankets for Project Linus, picking up trash from the riverbed, working at a soup kitchen, and volunteering at the library, but none of them quite resonated enough to continue diligently pursuing. After extensive searching, I was finally able to find meaningful volunteer work that helped shape a path for my future. In my sophomore year, school was interrupted quite often by forest fires, which had never happened before. So, I began researching the reasons behind it and eventually fell down a rabbit hole of environmental issues. I read about fires, melting polar ice caps, food waste, the dangers of capitalism, and how dangerous the trajectory of the human race was. Naturally, I first felt massive waves of eco anxiety and was simply terrified of the future. However, after weeks of reflection, I came to the realization that the only way out of this grim future was productive action. So, I began searching for a tangible way to help the planet, which I found at Cottonwood Urban Farm. The first time I stumbled upon this volunteer opportunity, I felt as if I had found a hidden oasis. As I opened the gate, I sniffed the earthy smell of compost. I turned and saw two compost piles about ten feet long and three feet high that were actively steaming. The owner of the farm, Elliot, put me to work straightaway on the compost piles. There was a stack of about fifty buckets filled with food waste, and I worked on emptying them onto the pile. The other volunteer and I spread a thin layer of food waste on the top of the pile, and then covered that with a layer of dried leaves and branches to form a sort of demented layered cake. That was all I did that first day, but my interest had peaked, so I continued returning. Some days, I was the only volunteer and other days there would be twenty or so people ready to help. Some days I sifted compost by straining it through a sifter to sort out random garbage and chunks. This was followed by dumping the compost in the worm bins where the worm castings made the soil into “black gold.” Other days I trained new volunteers, fed maggots to the ducks, collected eggs, and pruned trees. While composting in itself does not seem like such a radical idea, widespread composting would drastically cut down greenhouse gas emissions. I found that more than 30% of garbage thrown in landfills is food waste, so composting diverts this food waste from the landfill, thus preventing more greenhouse gasses from being trapped in the atmosphere. Because of this massive benefit of composting, I wanted to share my newfound knowledge with my community, so I co-founded a club at my school called Seeds of Change that focuses on education regarding climate change with an emphasis on composting. These past two years I have planned lectures, organized a school wide compost system, and delivered workshops to neighboring schools. Because of my volunteer experiences, I hope to continue this line of work as my career. By the age of thirty, I hope to have completed law school and be working as an environmental lawyer. I plan on completing a major in environmental studies with an emphasis on policy. After I complete my bachelors, I will attend law school, after which I hope to follow a career in environmental law so that I can fight for a sustainable world where human kind are able to give as much as we take. One particular area I am interested in fighting for is the environmental regulations for large corporations. Many companies seem to only have a mind for profit instead of their employees and the planet. They profit from mining or manufacturing and have detrimental tolls on the environment that need to be remedied as soon as possible. Environmentalism and climate change are such massive issues that they are often glazed over in the government because of how looming and frightening they are. However, we as a society cannot continue pushing these issues under a rug. Nay, we must face them head on, and I hope to be part of that movement towards a sustainable economy.

In college I plan on majoring in environmental studies with an emphasis in environmental policy, which I hope will lead me to law school and a career in environmental law. I have always been passionate about the environment, but even more so these past two years. It all began when I researched and learned about the growing problems about our landfills how much of a threat they pose to the human population. I grew fearful of the future for the human race, so in 2019 I decided to make productive change instead of allowing my fear to fester. I started by researching my city’s landfill, and in doing some digging, I found they didn’t compost anything, not even food scraps or green waste. I was enraged, so I searched for a tangible way I could make a difference. I found my answer in LA Compost, which is an organization that composts food scraps from LA residents in hubs all over the city. I dove right into this world and volunteered every Saturday morning at one of the hubs where I mostly dumped rotting food on compost piles and sifted compost. After a few months of volunteering at the compost hub, I wanted to make sustainable change in my own community, so I co-founded a sustainability club at my school called Seeds of Change. The first club project I organized dealt with launching a composting program that turned food scraps into beautiful earth to use in our club garden. I worked closely with the principal to allow my team to upcycle old trash bins into colorful food receptacles placed around campus. From there, my team and I collected the food scraps from the bins each Friday and dumped them on our compost pile on campus. After a few months of this process, other people in the city sent us emails wondering if we would expand to include the food waste of the larger community since we served as the only compost hub for miles. So, after some organization my club decided we would begin a program called “Friday Compost Drop-Offs” where people in the community could bring their food waste to our campus to be composted. We began receiving food scraps from community members, and it was so rewarding to see all the waste we saved from landfills. During these Fridays I got to meet a lot of people that were also passionate about environmentalism and make wonderful connections. In doing so, my co-president and I were invited to teach workshops at both Bridgeport Elementary School and CalArts about composting and sustainability. Planning for these workshops only fueled my passion for environmentalism and gave me the confidence to pursue this as my major. Because of my history with teaching and organizing environmental projects, I believe that I will thrive as an environmental studies major. I have so many ideas and a hard work ethic, so I am excited for what I will bring to the table as I build my career.

In college I plan on majoring in environmental studies with an emphasis in environmental policy, which I hope will lead me to law school and a career in environmental law. I have always been passionate about the environment, but even more so these past two years. It all began when I researched and learned about the growing problems about our landfills how much of a threat they pose to the human population. I grew fearful of the future for the human race, so in 2019 I decided to make productive change instead of allowing my fear to fester. I started by researching my city’s landfill, and in doing some digging, I found they didn’t compost anything, not even food scraps or green waste. I was enraged, so I searched for a tangible way I could make a difference. I found my answer in LA Compost, which is an organization that composts food scraps from LA residents in hubs all over the city. I dove right into this world and volunteered every Saturday morning at one of the hubs where I mostly dumped rotting food on compost piles and sifted compost. After a few months of volunteering at the compost hub, I wanted to make sustainable change in my own community, so I co-founded a sustainability club at my school called Seeds of Change. The first club project I organized dealt with launching a composting program that turned food scraps into beautiful earth to use in our club garden. I worked closely with the principal to allow my team to upcycle old trash bins into colorful food receptacles placed around campus. From there, my team and I collected the food scraps from the bins each Friday and dumped them on our compost pile on campus. After a few months of this process, other people in the city sent us emails wondering if we would expand to include the food waste of the larger community since we served as the only compost hub for miles. So, after some organization my club decided we would begin a program called “Friday Compost Drop-Offs” where people in the community could bring their food waste to our campus to be composted. We began receiving food scraps from community members, and it was so rewarding to see all the waste we saved from landfills. During these Fridays I got to meet a lot of people that were also passionate about environmentalism and make wonderful connections. In doing so, my co-president and I were invited to teach workshops at both Bridgeport Elementary School and CalArts about composting and sustainability. Planning for these workshops only fueled my passion for environmentalism and gave me the confidence to pursue this as my major. Because of my history with teaching and organizing environmental projects, I believe that I will thrive as an environmental studies major. I have so many ideas and a hard work ethic, so I am excited for what I will bring to the table as I build my career.

I want to be an environmental lawyer. I have always been passionate about the environment, but even more so throughout these past two years. A few years ago I researched and learned about the growing problems about our landfills how much of a threat they pose to the human population. It’s terrifying to know that soon we’ll be out of places to stack up our garbage, and what happens then? Where will trash go? These types of thoughts plagued my brain for years, so in 2019 I decided to make productive change instead of allowing my fear to fester. I started by researching my city’s landfill, and in doing some digging, I found that they didn’t compost anything, not even food scraps or green waste. I was enraged, so I searched for ways that I could make a difference. I found my answer in LA Compost, which is an organization that composts food scraps from LA residents in hubs all over the city. I dove right into this world and volunteered every Saturday morning at one of the hubs with my friend who is also passionate about environmentalism. That’s where we learned different ways to compost and how unifying it is for people. I knew we had to make sustainable change in our own community, so we founded a sustainability club at our school called Seeds of Change. Within the club, we launched a composting program that turns food scraps into beautiful earth to use in our club garden. But, I knew I had to do more than reduce our schools’ waste, so we opened our compost hub to the rest of the city. We began receiving food scraps from community members, and it was so rewarding to see all the waste we saved from landfills. We even received requests to lead workshops at Bridgeport Elementary School and CalArts about composting and sustainability. These opportunities allowed my team to learn how to teach effectively in different age groups, which only fueled our passion for sustainability. The four hour long workshop at CalArts was especially exciting because it allowed my partner and I to plan for an extended block of time with activities, discussion prompts, lectures, and examples so they could have a full understanding of composting and sustainability. My friend has been there every step of the way through our journey to make our community more sustainable and has inspired me with her perseverance and positive attitude. Since 2019, I have turned my fears into positive environmental change that has positively impacted my school and community. I intend on pursuing this line of work to continue to make positive change.

I have always prided myself on my self sufficiency and work ethic. Before this pandemic, I constantly worked to fulfill my various goals. I was involved in activities every day of the week whether it be orchestra, night classes, or homework. I enjoyed my busy schedule, but it was stressful to maintain. My worst habit was my inability to accept help with my tasks because I wanted to accomplish everything alone. The main reason for my work ethic is my upbringing. I come from a family that pushes women to work in submissive roles like being a mother or caretaker. Nearly all my female family members have fit themselves into this mold because of these pressures the family has also pushed on me. I remember a conversation with my grandmother when I told her I hoped to be a concert cellist, and in response she said, “Samea, you should leave the real work to your husband, but maybe you can be a secretary in your free time.” This simple sentence spurred my work ethic since I desperately want to prove her wrong and provide for myself. While this goal of self-sufficiency is respectable, the way I tried to make it happen was unsustainable. I was swept up in my projects and left no time for myself. However, when Covid-19 plagued the nation and we were ordered to stay home, my life stopped dead in its tracks. My activities vanished and I suddenly had huge gaps of time left empty. For a while, I wrestled with feelings of hopelessness and loneliness in my room alone until I finally realized that to get through this difficult time, I needed to accept help from my family. I decided to let go of my preconceived notions of self sufficiency and learn to lean on my family, which eventually helped me feel less alone. I made it a priority to foster relationships with each family member and learn the importance of sharing burdens and lifting each other up. As the days and weeks blurred into each other, it was easy to feel trapped and isolated. But when this happened, my family learned to support each other and prevent feelings of isolation from becoming all consuming. In doing this, I realized my accomplishments meant nothing without their support. In retrospect, I am thankful this pandemic forced me to step back and put relationships at a higher priority. I learned to rely on others in times of stress and I hope to continue this pattern once this pandemic is under control. I value the support of my family and hope to continue this positive relationship in a post-Covid world. After all, I now know that individuality isn’t everything and that nothing truly great can be accomplished alone.

I was not always a leader. When I first entered high school, I had serious imposter syndrome. The school I attend is a middle college high school, which means students take both college and high school classes and most of the kids are STEM majors. Throughout the year I saw everyone around me excel in science and math, and I felt like they all had something I didn’t. In this new school, I felt like I was constantly on the brink of drowning under the immense stack of work that seemed to keep piling up. There came a shift in my junior year where I began to feel more confident in my abilities. That year I began volunteering at a compost hub where I learned about farming, food waste, and environmentalism. I socialized with the other volunteers, who I realized I had a lot in common with. None were the sorts of people I had been around at school. They weren’t stellar at math, but they cared about the environment. I cannot pinpoint the exact moment when the switch flipped, but during my time on that farm, I realized that I did not need to be a math genius to go into STEM. All I needed was a growth mindset and determination. With this newfound sense of purpose, I set off to improve my school with a new club about sustainability and composting called Seeds of Change that I co founded. Working on club projects gave me a sense of belonging, self, and pride for my accomplishments that I had never had before. Under my leadership, my club constructed a school garden, organized a compost drop-off station, led weekly club meetings, and taught composting workshops at CalArts and Bridgeport Elementary. Serving the community in this unique, niche way gave me a sense of meaning that I previously lacked. However, this year when the world ceased functioning because of the pandemic, our club was not able to do a lot of the activities I would normally lead. So, my co-president and I brainstormed and came up with a schedule to keep our members engaged. We now have over thirty members that we teach weekly with a theme, challenge, lecture, and discussion. Although I experienced a difficult two years of high school, I am grateful for my unique set of abilities. I found that to overcome my own sense of inferiority, I had to throw myself into a project that I was passionate about. I realized that I am in no way inferior to my classmates because of my lack of math skills, but instead realized that I have a different set of strengths. I came to find that I am a good leader and a hard worker, which are just as important. I learned to focus on these strengths instead of the skills I lack and it has made me a better leader, and now I will carry these skills to college and beyond to change this world for the better.

I admire Rachel Carson, an author, marine biologist, and conservationist because of her dramatic impact on the way the US perceives certain chemicals in relation to the environment. In 1962, Rachel Carson published a book titled Silent Spring that spurred a generation of advocates that began the environmental movement. Silent Spring is a nonfiction book that discusses the negative environmental impact of pesticides, especially DDT, along with their toll on humans. When the book was first published, chemical companies attempted to censor Carson’s work, which would have hidden her findings about the negative impact of DDT and other chemicals from the general public. If her work had been successfully censored, these dangerous chemicals would still be widely used and the environmental movement would not be as prevalent and impactful as it is today. Before Carson’s book was published, farming and household chemicals were widely used with little to no scrutiny because the producers of these chemicals constantly assured everyone that they were perfectly safe. This is one of the issues Carson touches on in her book, that there needs to be a third party present to test the chemicals so companies are not inclined to bend the truth to increase the value of their product. With Silent Spring quickly becoming a bestseller, it became widely known that DDT has detrimental effects to birds and their surrounding biodiversity. When people began to question the ethicacy and risk that the excessive use of pesticides brought, the use of chemicals drastically decreased, and every one of the toxic chemicals named in the book was either banned or severely restricted in the United States by 1975. Carson’s years of research and courage to stand against these opposing chemical companies is admirable. She was able to enact sweeping policy changes to the country by rallying the public behind her because of her wonderfully written book full of well thought out arguments and evidence. While I do not count on making the same sweeping changes to the nation as Carson did, she still serves as an inspiration to me because of the far reaching effects of her book. The main reason I chose my major in environmental studies and policy was due to learning about Rachel Carson in one of my community college courses. I was inspired by her courage and decided that I too wanted to make lasting changes to better the environment, which is why my goal is to become an environmental lawyer. Some of the topics I am especially passionate about in this field is to protect our remaining rainforest, enact laws against excessive cow farming, and to encourage more public transportation and electric car use. I want our planet to prosper again, and I believe that attending school to be an environmental lawyer will allow me to help our planet.

In my junior year of high school I decided to make a positive change in my community, so I co-founded a club at my school. The club, Seeds of Change, focuses on education regarding climate change with an emphasis on composting. I serve as the co-president and of this club and am heavily involved in the planning of club projects, meeting preparation, and outreach. Throughout these last two years we have carried out three major projects: a schoolwide compost system, two garden boxes, and two community workshops. The first project I decided to lead was a schoolwide compost system in an effort to reduce food waste on campus. Our first order of business was for my co-president and I to work closely with our principal to gain permission to upcycle old trash bins into colorful food scrap receptacles. We painted the bins a vivid yellow with sunflowers and directions for what could be placed in the bins. After we finished our paint job, we placed them around campus next to trash and recycling bins. We also worked with staff to find a place on campus to compost these food scraps. Every Friday, my club and I emptied the food waste bins onto our compost pile to begin decomposing. After about a month of this process, I realized that we needed a place for our finished compost, so I decided to organize our next project of building a garden box. I knew that my club had minimal funds, so I decided to reach out to some local businesses. I emailed a local soil company, garden store, and utility store, who all happily donated the tools we needed for this project. My team worked to build two garden boxes out of donated wood planks and install it near our compost pile. We then filled the box with compost and donated soil, then planted seeds and seedlings. As we planned out our garden layout, my club was able to harness their knowledge of sustainable farming we had learned over the course of the year. Over the course of a few months, my team and I watered and nurtured these plants until they were ready to harvest. Our bounty was few, but it was still rewarding to be able to grow our own food. The produce was used during a meeting to demonstrate healthy, sustainable meals. As the months passed and I continued the compost system at my school, I noticed a growing interest in our composting program from people outside our school community. We received multiple emails asking if we could expand our operation, so we worked with our school administrators to do so. After some advertising, printing of business cards, and outreach, my co-president and I deemed ourselves ready to take on more food waste from the community. So, we began holding Compost Drop-Off Fridays, which allowed community members to drop off food scraps at our school to add to our compost pile. In doing this, my co-president and I made valuable connections and were invited to teach compost workshops at Bridgeport Elementary School and CalArts. My co-president and I taught thirty students at Bridgeport Elementary the basics of composting and how to sort food waste through group activities. At CalArts, the two of us taught a group of twenty college students the methods of composting and sustainability and how they could incorporate it into their school and community. This past semester, I have continued to lead and teach in Seeds of Change despite the circumstances. We now hold weekly meetings that are structured with a theme, lecture, discussion, and challenge for the following week. My co-president and I take turns lecturing each week, but we are both heavily involved in leading the discussions and facilitating a safe space for conversation. Some of the topics we have tackled this semester are landfill mining, native plants, climate change in politics, native bees, and sustainable agriculture. I have also worked to plan other activities such as movie nights. Our club has one of the highest membership with 20-30 people attending virtually each week. In the future, I hope to continue spreading awareness about environmental issues on a larger scale. By the age of thirty, I hope to have completed graduate school and be working in the field of environmental advocacy. I hope to follow a career in law so that I can fight for a sustainable world where human kind are able to live on this planet and give as much as we take. One particular area I am interested in fighting for the environmental regulations for large corporations that seem to only have a mind for profit instead of their employees and the planet. Many of these companies that profit from mining or manufacturing have detrimental tolls on the environment that need to be remedied as soon as possible. My major influence for choosing this path is the recent course I took this semester, Environmental Biology. In this class, I realized how widespread the issue of climate change is and the technology and knowledge we have to fix it, but have not yet because of political clashes. Before this class, I understood that climate change was an issue, but it was not until this semester that I realized how pressing it is. I am willing to put in all my time and energy into a career for the betterment of society, and I hope others will follow.

The problem that interests me most concerning climate change is food waste, which contributes 40% of waste that ends up in landfills. Thus far, I have already become an advocate for composting in my community by working at a compost hub in LA and co-founding a composting and sustainability club at my school. I first started this journey by searching for environmentally conscious volunteer opportunities, which I found at Cottonwood Urban Farm. Every Saturday morning for a year, I composted about 100 pounds of food scraps, sifted compost, trained new volunteers, fed maggots to the ducks, collected eggs, and pruned trees. After a few months of composting on the weekends, I wanted to bring composting to my own community. So, I co-founded an outreach club at my school in my junior year. The club, Seeds of Change, focuses on education about food waste and composting. I serve as the co-president of this club and am heavily involved in the planning of club projects and meetings. We have carried out three major projects: a schoolwide compost system, two garden boxes, and two community workshops. The first project was a schoolwide compost system. My co-president and I worked with the principle to implement colorful bins on campus for food scraps along with a small area to compost the scraps. Every Friday, we emptied these bins by adding them to our compost pile on campus. After about a month of this process, we realized we needed a place for our finished compost, so we decided to undertake our next project of building a garden box. My team worked to build a garden box, fill it with soil, and plant vegetables. At this point, there was growing interest around our compost system from people outside our school community. We received multiple emails asking if we could expand our operation, so we worked with our school administrators to do so. Every Friday morning, community members dropped off food scraps at our school to compost. In doing this, my co-president and I made valuable connections and were invited to teach workshops at Bridgeport Elementary School and CalArts. My co-president and I taught thirty students at Bridgeport Elementary the basics of composting and how to sort food waste in group activities. At CalArts, we taught a group of twenty college students the methods of composting and sustainability and how they could incorporate it into their school and community. The potential solution to the food waste crisis I am exited about is the notion of nation wide community and industrial compost hubs. Composting is unique in the sense that it often requires different methods for different items to be composted. For example, compostable plastic takes a much longer time with higher heat to decompose compared to a rotten apple, which why we need both types of compost hubs. I am already working with my local government to implement a larger community compost hub in my city, which I believe will be beneficial for businesses, individuals, and the environment.

This image depicts the beginning of a friendship. These two tortoises, by beloved pets, are meeting for the first time in this picture. Sonja, the Russian tortoise on the left, has been my companion for six years. Sonja is a roughened tortoise that loves outdoors, so we usually let her roam around the backyard and eat whatever she likes in the garden. Over quarantine, we figured Sonja might like a friend, so we purchased Bee, a leopard tortoise that loves tagging along with Sonja. They love to dig holes in the dirt, eat strawberries together, and trample over seedlings. samea_fua

I was first motivated to seek out volunteer work surrounding composting because of my crushing eco anxiety. A few years ago I researched and learned about the growing problems about our landfills and how much of a threat they pose to the human population. It’s terrifying to know that soon we’ll be out of places to stack up our garbage, and what happens then? Where will trash go? These types of thoughts plagued my brain for years, so in 2019 I started searching for volunteer opportunities to make productive change instead of allowing my fear to fester, which I found at Cottonwood Urban Farm. The first time I stumbled upon this volunteer opportunity, I felt as if I had found a hidden oasis. My first day volunteering there I was met with a large, wooden, sliding gate. I peeked my head inside to the smell of earthy soil. It was a rich, sour, thick smell that was somehow comforting. I turned and saw two compost piles about ten feet long and three feet high that were actively steaming. The owner of the farm, Elliot, rushed to greet me and put me to work straightaway on the compost piles. There was a stack of about fifty buckets filled with food waste, and I worked on emptying them onto the pile. The other volunteer and I spread a thin layer of food waste on the top of the pile, and then covered that with a layer of dried leaves and branches to form a sort of demented layered cake. That was all I did that first day, but my interest had peaked. I ended up returning every week for just over a year. Some days, I was the only volunteer and other days there would be twenty or so people ready and willing to help. Once I became a regular volunteer, I started performing other tasks around the farm. Some days I sifted compost by straining the piled compost through a sifter to sort out random garbage and chunks. This was always followed by dumping the compost in the worm bins where the worm castings made the soil into “black gold.” Other days I trained new volunteers, fed maggots to the ducks, collected eggs, and pruned trees. The finished compost was then used on the farm and in community and school gardens. After a few months of composting on the weekends, I knew I had to bring composting to my own community. So, I co-founded an outreach club at my school in my junior year. The club, Seeds of Change, focuses on education about food waste and composting. I serve as the co-president of this club and am heavily involved in the planning of club projects and meetings. Last year, Seeds of Change had an average of ten active members per meeting while this year we have an average of twenty to thirty active members per meeting. We have carried out three major projects: a schoolwide compost system, two garden boxes, and two community workshops. The first project was a schoolwide compost system. My co-president and I worked with the principle to implement colorful bins on campus for food scraps along with a small area to compost the scraps. Every Friday, we emptied these bins by adding them to our compost pile on campus. After about a month of this process, we realized we needed a place for our finished compost, so we decided to undertake our next project of building a garden box. My team worked to build a garden box, fill it with soil, and plant vegetables. The produce was used during a meeting to demonstrate healthy, sustainable meals. At this point, there was growing interest around our compost system from people outside our school community. We received multiple emails asking if we could expand our operation, so we worked with our school administrators to do so. Every Friday morning, community members dropped off food scraps at our school to compost. In doing this, my co-president and I made valuable connections and were invited to teach workshops at Bridgeport Elementary School and CalArts. My co-president and I taught thirty students at Bridgeport Elementary the basics of composting and how to sort food waste in group activities. At CalArts, we taught a group of twenty college students the methods of composting and sustainability and how they could incorporate it into their school and community. We taught more than fifty people about sustainability and saved approximately 100 pounds of food waste from the ending up in a landfill. I want to see community composting become more and more common because of the environmental benefits and community bonding experience it brings.

When I first attended Academy of the Canyons (AOC) in my freshman year, I had serious imposter syndrome. I saw everyone around me that was amazing at science and math and wanted to go into STEM, and I felt like they all had something that I didn’t. I felt like their brains worked better than mine since I always heard them talking about how easy their math homework was while I spent every evening crying at my dining table, trying to complete my own. I felt like I had to work ten times harder studying and working to get the same results they did. A lot of these feelings of inferiority came from the culture of AOC, which is one of immediate growth for STEM students. The type of student that I saw recognized the most often were outgoing personalities that completed Calc 3 by their senior year, and that felt unattainable for me. I felt rejected from my peers and alone in my academic struggles. This was a significant obstacle for me since I had grown accustomed to being at the top of my class in junior high. But in this new school, I felt like I was constantly on the brink of drowning under the immense stack of work that seemed to keep piling up. There came a shift in my junior year, however, where I began to feel more confident in my abilities. That year I began volunteering at a compost hub where I learned about farming, food waste, and environmentalism. I socialized with the other volunteers, who I realized I had a lot in common with. None of them were the sorts of people I had been around at AOC. They weren’t stellar at math, but they cared about the environment. I cannot pinpoint the exact moment when the switch flipped, but during my time on that farm, a cog turned in my brain and I realized that I did not need to be a math genius to go into STEM. All I needed was a growth mindset and determination. With this newfound sense of purpose, I set off to improve AOC with a new club about sustainability and composting called Seeds of Change. My main focus was composting while my friend taught about sustainability. Working on club projects gave me a sense of belonging, a sense of self, and a sense of pride for my accomplishments that I had never had before. Watching food waste stack up and slowly morph into beautiful compost is one of the most rewarding things I have experienced. Although it led to a difficult two years in highschool, I am grateful for my unique set of abilities. I found that to overcome my own sense of inferiority, I had to throw myself into a project that I was passionate about. I realized that I am in no way inferior to my classmates because of my lack of math skills, but instead realized that I have a different set of strengths. I came to find that I am a good leader and a hard worker, which are just as important. I learned to focus on these strengths instead of the skills I lack and it has served me well. I know my passions and strengths, and throughout my compost journey I learned how to set and follow through on my goals. I now know that I find great joy from environmental work, which is why I am planning on studying environmental sciences in college. I am undeniably a different and improved version of me compared to my doubtful freshman self.

When I first attended Academy of the Canyons (AOC) in my freshman year, I had serious imposter syndrome. I saw everyone around me that was amazing at science and math and wanted to go into STEM, and I felt like they all had something that I didn’t. I felt like their brains worked better than mine since I always heard them talking about how easy their math homework was while I spent every evening crying at my dining table, trying to complete my own. I felt like I had to work ten times harder studying and working to get the same results they did. A lot of these feelings of inferiority came from the culture of AOC, which is one of immediate growth for STEM students. The type of student that I saw recognized the most often were outgoing personalities that completed Calc 3 by their senior year, and that felt unattainable for me. This was a significant obstacle for me since I had grown accustomed to being at the top of my class in junior high. But in this new school, I felt like I was constantly on the brink of drowning under the immense stack of work that seemed to keep piling up. There came a shift in my junior year, however, where I began to feel more confident in my abilities. That year I began volunteering at a compost hub where I learned about farming, food waste, and environmentalism. I socialized with the other volunteers, who I realized I had a lot in common with. None of them were the sorts of people I had been around at AOC. They weren’t stellar at math, but they cared about the environment. I cannot pinpoint the exact moment when the switch flipped, but during my time on that farm, a cog turned in my brain and I realized that I did not need to be a math genius to go into STEM. All I needed was a growth mindset and determination. With this newfound sense of purpose, I set off to improve AOC with a new club about sustainability and composting called Seeds of Change. My main focus was composting while my friend taught about sustainability. Working on club projects gave me a sense of belonging, a sense of self, and a sense of pride for my accomplishments that I had never had before. Watching food waste stack up and slowly morph into beautiful compost is one of the most rewarding things I have experienced. Although it led to a difficult two years in high school, I am grateful for my unique set of abilities. I found that to overcome my own sense of inferiority, I had to throw myself into a project that I was passionate about. I realized that I am in no way inferior to my classmates because of my lack of math skills, but instead realized that I have a different set of strengths. I came to find that I am a good leader and a hard worker, which are just as important. I learned to focus on these strengths instead of the skills I lack and it has served me well. I know my passions and strengths, and throughout my compost journey I learned how to set and follow through on my goals. I now know that I find great joy from environmental work, which is why I am planning on studying environmental sciences in college. I am undeniably a different and improved version of me compared to my doubtful freshman self.