The Leopold Writing Program invites New Mexico students in grades 6-12 to submit original essays for their 2024 Writing Contest. Students are asked to consider the following and then respond to the essay prompt below:

Aldo Leopold is most widely known as the author of A Sand County Almanac (1949), in which he articulates his land ethic: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

Today, we can look to Leopold’s writing to help guide us in addressing changing realities brought about by climate change, biodiversity loss, growing demand for fresh water, and other global environmental issues. In his essay Engineering and Conservation (1938), Leopold writes:

“Our tools are better than we are, and grow better faster than we do. They suffice to crack the atom, to command the tides But they do not suffice for the oldest task in human history, to live on a piece of land without spoiling it.”

THE ESSAY PROMPT

Are our tools better than we are? Think about tools in your life. Do they help or hurt your relationship with our ecological community?

Cash prizes will be awarded to the winning essayists in three grade categories: 6-7, 8-9, and 10-12.

Submissions are accepted through Feb. 15 at 6 pm.

For complete instructions and an entry form, visit leopoldwritingprogram.org and follow the Writing Contest link.