Connery wood and I’m a junior here at
Mountain View High School some of you
may know me for my work on the School of
Science Olympiad team or from a soccer
team in years past
however as you’ve just heard I have a
strong passion for the earth my mom
tells a story of how she would slowly
walk in on me when I was a toddler to
make sure I was napping as she’d slowly
peek open the door instead of finding
for me napping instead she’d see me
poring over a big book of rocks minerals
or of nature in the environment I notice
her and she’d smile at me and I have
smiled back a little guiltily and that
I’d keep reading
ever since then I’ve held a passion for
the earth this past summer I found the
opportunity to express my passion for
the earth by finding work as an intern
at Stanford University in the school of
energy Earth and environmental sciences
one of my projects was helping a PhD
student Stacy Lewis with her work on the
corals of the Pacific Islands country of
plow when I first joined her in the
office not in the field I was told that
I would be studying and summarizing the
history of plow now I was a bit confused
I had applied to research science not
history but as I continued with my
research I found that the historical
aspects of the of the concepts allowed
me to gain a new perspective on the
environmentalism my main source of
information was the book pulao from a
colonial outpost to an independent
nation which was written only recently
in 2015 and it is the first book by
Apple Owen about their fight for
independence a major part of class
history was its conflict with the US
after it was liberated by them at the
end of World War two the Palau ins
wanted to fight for independence because
it was part of their culture the US
however asserted control over their
lands and does wish to use them for a
military base and as a disposal of
hazardous materials the Palau ins in
pardon
natural culture of Environmental
Protection refused these desires through
force of math not by arms
Palau fought for its independence from
the US for nearly 50 years not counting
the previous centuries of occupation by
Spain Germany and Japan and they faced
many hardships along the way such as
American forced legislature and even
local terrorism against the independence
movement but after decades of waiting
through political arguments with the US
and after lawsuit after lawsuit against
them they succeeded in becoming
independent peacefully in 1994 they have
now protected 80 percent of their local
coast lines making their coastal waters
some of the best protected in the world
the plows have indeed boldly gone into
the realm of Environmental Protection as
the nation is a modern role model for
the rest of the world and with the
inspiration of this history my research
became much clearer in purpose I began
the scientific research that I had so
hoped for the scientific side of this
interdisciplinary mission consisted of
the sorting and analyzing data
measurements of sediment off of Laos
coast both increases and composition of
that sediment because the changes in the
sediment can damage the environment as
we can see here that dirty gray looking
water is a massive sediment influx from
the land that sediment can contain
dangerous chemicals such as a melange of
pesticides a wide variety of fertilizers
and further chemicals from industries
such as sulfuric acid these changes in
the sediments as just stated are due to
the industrial runoff in order to track
those changes we looked at coral
skeleton cores corals used sediment in
the water to create their skeletons
leaving a distinct pattern
not unlike rings on a tree that we can
use to track the composition of that
sediment and the concentration of it in
the water
scientists can analyze those patterns
and run chemical tests on them to find
different levels of elements in the
corals and in turn the sediment in the
water at the time the coral made that
layer of its skeleton we measured in
analyze levels of barium calcium and
strontium in the skeletons of the corals
an increase in the barium and strontium
however
is always linked with influxes in the
sediment of industry industry because
that is the main source therefore if we
can figure out when that barium and
strontium comes in we can usually link
it to an industry industrial push thus
we need to figure this out in order to
protect their environment calcium is the
normal element in the coral skeletons
but the corals can substitute the other
two into its skeleton where there is
enough of either in the water which
makes it a very good tracker my job was
to find a way to sift through all of the
data that Stacy had collected to find
the levels of barium calcium and
strontium in those sediments and in turn
the water I ended up going through about
50,000 data points and the data I
collected is in a section of the box in
that box on the graph the peak in the
part of the graph that I analyzed
coincides in time with a large-scale
building project on Palau near the site
where Stacy collected the data by
comparing this data to the historical
record we can tell that our methods are
successful in identifying when there is
a massive push of industry on land near
the coast looking at the readings
however we can see that there is a
massive increase in sediment runoff in
recent years which is probably related
to an industrialization effort on the
islands and since it is part of the
plowin culture to protect their
environment we must make them aware of
these results so that they can fix the
damaged weather by reducing their
industrial runoff or by helping them fix
and clean the sediment itself after all
they didn’t achieve the protection of
80% of their coastlines for nothing and
while my research is certainly
interesting or at least that’s the hope
I came to realize that the purpose of
the research and data crunching was not
from merely experience in the field but
to work towards a much bigger picture
the rest of the world does need to
follow the Palau an example of
environmental awareness and protection
and so we have begun the first steps
toward this example nearly five months
ago back in August President Obama with
met with Palau president Tommy
remengesau
as shown here to talk about how the
Palau ins havoc set that example for the
rest of the world Obama chose to follow
this model by creating the United States
Atlantic
marine preserve off the coast of New
England the first one for our nation and
by creating the world’s largest
environmental preserve of the ocean off
the coast of the Hawaiian Islands as
seen here
Obama oversees the final stages of
negotiations in addition he helped
expand the size of u-17 national park
here in California to preserve the land
as a habitat for wildlife and from
people who wish to advance cattle
ranching and logging there and he passed
legislature to reduce oil drilling
throughout the nation so I think we can
all say to that thanks Obama
but Wallace is an excellent start to
environmental protection
we all must help finish the job even in
the cloud of the future that we may face
we must persevere and keep following the
plow an example to protect the
environment however we can you too can
go beyond the previously conceived
limits and work to protect the
environment for us all even and in fact
especially the little things can help
save the world turning off the water
when you’re brushing your teeth limiting
your sprinkler usage or trying to time
it properly so that there’s a minimum of
water wasted or avoiding small
pollutants such as microbeads and
anything and everything else you can do
to protect the environment to save water
to use less energy to waste less and it
will help us give us a better stronger
clearer and cleaner future so work not
for the today for yourself but for the
tomorrow of generations to follow
thank you [Applause]