The Natural Course by Jeanie

The Natural Course by Jeanie - March 2020 Scholarship Essay

Nature has always been a constant part of my childhood. My family would take me and my sister to Corpus Christi yearly and during the holidays, we would visit natural parks ranging from Lost Maples Park to the Guadalupe River. Excitement would keep me awake all night, and the natural environment of towering deciduous trees or crashing ocean waves would keep my heart beating long after we left. As I grew older, the traveling decreased, but my love for nature did not. I would take constant walks around my neighborhood and began to take pictures of my surroundings. Through capturing small, delicate moments such as dewdrops on a fresh patch of grass or a bee visiting a yellow flower, I understood and respected nature’s influence in both large and small settings. Consequently, my desire to understand the environment deepened and grew as well as my vision to become an environmental scientist, continuing my walk with nature.

For the first five years, I plan to work in a laboratory to learn, observe and investigate. I can scrutinize nature in a more intimate manner through microscopes, test tubes, and collected samples. A day can be comprised of spending long hours surrounded by various species of aqua plants to test their possible candidacy for biofuel or testing human-manufactured pollutants and their costly effects on the ecosystem. The next day could be collecting-samples day, walking in an open field, digging knee-deep in the earth to view the soil layers and take samples back to the lab to test for any contaminants. Or I would bend down near the bank, capping tubes of freshwater teeming with microorganisms to be studied later on. I can formulate theories, ideas, of how nature functions and possibly find solutions to our human-caused problems through these observations. One such problem is oil spills, infrequent but dangerous, leading to long-lasting consequences to marine life. Current treatment involves spraying chemicals over the spilled area to disperse the oil but could produce byproducts harmful to animals. To tackle this problem, I can develop a lab to study different living agents such as bacteria or other microorganisms that can be used to clean the oil instead. Overall, a glimpse into my first five years are filled with research projects, countless hours in developing solutions, and studying and tracking different animal and plant species.

The next five years will be working directly with people and society and implementing what I learned so far to facilitate a more healthy relationship between humans and nature. I could become a consultant for different companies in the food, fashion, or fracking business. Working hand-in-hand with such businesses, we can lessen the production of toxic waste or overuse of natural resources to produce products in an environmentally safe way. Whether it's at a construction site discussing with workers were to locate the new building to avoid endangering the lives of current animals and plants to delivering a presentation on the dangers of fracking to oil companies, I will be cooperating with people from different industries to mitigate environmental damage. Furthermore, the environment is an important resource to meet our daily needs such as water, but many can not afford clean water in different places around the world. By working with nonprofit organizations and local committees, I plan to travel to poverty-stricken nations to help develop better filtration systems or solutions to make drinkable water safe and accessible. In addition, such communities burn wood to heat their homes and water which can lead to lung problems and contribute a fair amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. To solve this problem, I would like to work with others to find environmentally safe ways to heat such homes such as using solar heating. Overall, my following five years will be comprised of collaborations, actively implementing solutions, and helping those in need to meet fundamental needs.

For me, my ten-year career plan is to continue my passion and love for nature through research and helping others walk with me along this journey to live a life alongside nature.