LWP News:
TAOS — The Leopold Writing Program (LWP), a New Mexico based non-profit, is celebrating its 15th year of offering an environmental essay writing contest open to all 6th-12th graders in the state of New Mexico.
This year’s contest features nearly $3,000 in scholarship awards for the best student essays in three age categories. In 2022, nine middle and high school students read their essays aloud to an assembled group of families, educators and friends in the Old Senate Chamber at the Bataan Memorial Building in Santa Fe.
This year’s winners are invited to read their essays on Earth Day, April 22, at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque.
“We are thrilled that so many schools throughout the state are promoting this contest so students can have their voices heard on topics that relate to environmental stewardship, restoration, and regeneration,” LWP President John Byram said. “Our goal with this annual contest is to give New Mexican students a platform to express their ideas about environmental conservation and actions we can individually and collectively take to protect the Earth’s abundant gifts.”
The Leopold Writing Program, building upon the environmental ethics of Aldo Leopold, author of A Sand County Almanac (1949), seeks effective and inclusive ways to engage the current and next generation of citizen leaders in the urgent conversation to address changing realities brought about by climate disruption, biodiversity loss, growing demand for fresh water, and other global conservation issues.
“We are so grateful to the donors that make our programs possible,” LWP Education Liaison Elena Kayak said. “We are primarily a volunteer organization, and we rely on donations and grants to keep our environmental essay contest, residency program, and annual lecture initiatives available for students and writers to share their powerful ideas with audiences in New Mexico and beyond.”
This April, the Annual Leopold Lecturer is Robin Wall Kimmerer, recent recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, and author of the award-winning book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants.
This year’s essay prompt (which changes every year) is based on both Leopold’s and Kimmerer’s writings, asking students to reflect on these quotations:
“Though the Earth provides us with all that we need, we have created a consumption-driven economy that asks, ‘What more can we take from the Earth?’ and almost never, ‘What does the Earth ask of us in return?’” –Robin Wall Kimmerer
“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”– Aldo Leopold
For more information on the contest and the Leopold Writing Program, visit: www.leopoldwritingprogram.org/writing-contest.html.
