Activism & Social Change

Image courtesy of Ariana ThorntonWritten by Ema MieleRed is the color of poppies,Orange is the color of daylilies,Yellow is the color of dandelions,Green is the color of pine trees,Blue is the color of the sky,Indigo is the color of orchids,Purple is the color of lilacs,But as nature gets polluted, cut, and trashed,Our world turns dull and gray;Underneath the clouds hides a rainbow,One that our world can uncover again;Treat the Earth the way you want to be treated-The rainbow rule.

Image courtesy of Dean OliverWritten by Audrey WuI watch the sunriseeach morning at the Lincoln MemorialIt is barely winteronly late November, but there’s a quieteeriness, a hint of knitted frostblanketingour sleeping nationI watch the sunriseand wonder what they saw when they built thiswhat they would have thought of someone like mean American, who belongs to this countryas much as it belongs to meas much as the men on those rusted copper penniesyet theirs are the faces immortalizedtheirs are the names memorializedI watch the sunrisebut it is creeping closer and closer stillthe curtain is drawingand through the tilted blindsthe light seeps through.The ground can’t be greenwhen our “Fathers” spilled the blood,crimson with each golden glare of the afterglow.When will you see thatthis nation...

Image courtesy of NASAby Ariana Thorntonwe are not the beginning.not the pinnacle of evolution as we’ve been taughtnot the center of the universe as we once believedbut one motif in the ever-growing intricacy of nature’s tapestry. nobody agrees on what makes the human condition unique among animals. our cognition? communication? intelligence?all animals feel pain,many feel fear and love,some possess an intellect similar to our own.we communicate through pheromones,we click, we whistle, we wail. we are as animal as the sea sponge, as curious as the octopus,as resourceful as the chimpanzee.so what, then, gives us–a species neither as successful as the antnor as ancient as the sea star–the right to call ourselves masters of all nature?nature has had 4.5 billion years to op...

Image courtesy of Margot RichardWritten by Esme HyattWhen discussing environmentalism, I think the general response is to focus on the planet. To me, however, it kindles thoughts around humans’ impact on the environment and the environment's impact on humans. I first got involved in environmentalism in 2019, when I was in middle school. What got me initially interested was not climate change’s effect on the environment, but its effect on humans. Seeing numerous articles detailing the overarching repercussions of climate change on human life made me realize how necessary it was for me and others to get involved. Ultimately, all consequences of climate change influence human life. It's the intersection of climate change and human health that I think is incredibly important. Fossil fuel...