Grades of Green was a huge part of my high school experience, yet my passion for environmental activism has only grown since being a part of the Youth Corps Eco-Leadership program. I now am a senior studying Earth Systems at Stanford University with concentrations in sustainable food and agriculture, and Spanish. In past summers, I have worked for an urban development non-profit called 100 Resilient Cities in New York and conducted environmental education research based on immersive backpacking trips in Yosemite National Park. More recently, I studied abroad in Santiago de Chile, where, while not learning about Chile’s incredible biodiversity in the classroom, I was lucky enough to explore the country’s natural wonders. I not only made it far South to camp in Torres del Paine in Patagonia, but traveled North to the Atacama Desert, where I sandboarded down massive dunes. I’m now spending the summer interning in Buenos Aires, Argentina with the municipal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). As an intern in their urban agriculture sector, I spend half my days in the greenhouse planting in preparation for their future educational farm, and the other half writing and designing a permaculture manual to accompany the city’s workshops