Resilience. A buzzword thrown around by guidance counsellors, self-help gurus, and college applicants alike, many people liken it to a sort of inborn talent found only in the likes of the highly successful. I beg to differ. Growing up in the oil capital of Canada, I was surrounded by an "economy before environment" mentality, where carbon taxes were unashamedly repealed in favour of fossil fuel development. Road trips through the Rockies meant seeing mountainsides littered with the remains of trees,...

Inhibit gibberellin biosynthesis? Manipulate soil water potential? "Could I even make that work?" I asked aloud. I furiously erased, then started pacing again. Some called it creating, others called it innovating, I called it the unscientific method. It was how my science fair projects came to be. At the time, I'd gathered my notes, intending to conceive a solution to the imminent, yet still unsolved issue of wildfires. Lined papers congested with writing were scattered across my desk, with some...

Growing up in the oil capital of Canada, I was surrounded by an "economy before environment" mentality, where carbon taxes were unashamedly repealed in favour of fossil fuel development. I knew it wasn't right that the planet sustaining our very lives was in a losing battle against corporate interests. Whenever I went on trips to the Rockies, I would see mountainsides littered with the remains of trees burnt to ash or cleared for mining—I couldn't help but feel a...

Forensic science. No, studio art. Wait—actually, forensic science. It'd been an hour, and I was still stuck on course requests. Back in junior high, I had to choose one option course. Simple. But for me, it was back to the age-old debate: science or art? I'm many things. A gregarious jokester, a contemplative introvert. A competitive athlete, a mellow jazz musician. But two parts of me seemingly cannot be simpatico: my analytical mind and my artistic creativity. Seeking an...

I’m many things. A gregarious jokester and a contemplative introvert. A fiercely competitive athlete and a mellow jazz musician. But two fundamental parts of me seemingly cannot be simpatico: my artistic creativity and my fascination with science. I’ve always been torn between these two worlds. At school, I was dismayed to find predefined guidelines I had to follow when performing labs and research. In art classes, it was challenging to work on one piece for several months; though...

It's twenty minutes past dismissal, but I'm still at school: talking to my teacher about how quantum mechanics would work for the time travel in Avengers: Endgame. Soon, I'll have to head home—an hour-long trip I make every day to be in a place where I can be myself. Everything I love most about my high school I see in USC: its low student-faculty ratio, small classes, and close-knit community. I can see myself building the same close relationships...

Without a doubt, the most important challenge is to develop carbon sequestration methods. Increased carbon emissions is arguably the most imminent issue and threat we face. It's responsible for air pollution, rising sea levels, extreme weather—including wildfires and hurricanes—and of course, global warming. To us, this means unbearable temperatures to live in, increases in respiratory diseases, and the loss of our homes and communities—a potential reality for anyone living in proximity to forests, oceans, and large urban...

Though I didn't know much about the Vancouver Convention Centre, the lush green roof, housing 400,000 species, immediately encapsulated me, as if shouting, "here I am!" over the otherwise monotonous skyline. Some of its innovative sustainable features, I later learned, included water recycling for rooftop irrigation and a seawater-based cooling system. Buildings often have profoundly negative impacts on where they're situated—soil degradation and thermal pollution among the milder. But in this case, the water in the area had become cleanerâ€...

Armed with my laptop, I settled into my beanbag chair. It was side project time. They were something I'd grown up doing—learning to solve Rubik’s cubes, getting a head start on two-digit multiplication, I sought out what I wanted to know. When wildfires and fossil fuels became issues that were right on my doorstep, my projects became similarly aligned, transforming into full-fledged inquiries. For months, I'd been immersed in researching carbon sequestration, its constant influx of information challenging...