Brianna Xie ’21 has been awarded first prize in the 10-12 category of the 2021 Aldo Leopold Writing Contest.
Aldo Leopold had an outsized influence on conservation in New Mexico, and far beyond, and we continue to be indebted to him for our wilderness areas and for the deeply important extension of ethics he espoused in his influential essay, “The Land Ethic,” says English teacher Casey Citrin. “I am especially proud of Brianna because she was in my Advanced English IV course, A Sense of Place, last trimester. We read several pieces from Aldo Leopold and spent time writing and reflecting on our connection to nature. Brianna is just a wonderfully inspired and thoughtful young woman.”
The writing contest, open to New Mexicans in grades 6-12, this year required students to write on a topic related to the staying at home due to the coronavirus. “Using Leopold’s land ethic as a guidepost, think about lessons we can learn from staying home. What acts of creation – be that as poet or as planter – did you unexpectedly find yourself taking up, and how did your creations build on some of New Mexico’s senses of dwelling with the Earth, such as querencia, kinship, acequias, and aridity?”
Brianna’s winning essay likened her immigrant parents to the hardiness and resilience of sagebrush and juniper, “able to thrive and make a foreign land their own.”
