Student entries for environmental essay contest due March 16

Delaware Interfaith Power & Light announced its fifth annual essay contest, which is open to all high school students statewide.

Renew ... Reflective Essays on Nature, Earth and Their Wonders offers a platform for all current high school students to reflect in writing the distinct role of youth on climate action, growing concerns over environmental justice and their personal sense of connectedness with the natural world.

Essays should be original works crafted by the students, a maximum of 1,500 words on one or a combination of the topics described, and emailed anytime between Monday, Feb. 23 and Monday, March 16, to renew@delawareipl.org.

Cash scholarship awards totaling $8,000 will go to the winning essayists.

Part of the inspiration for this contest came when Delaware Interfaith Power & Light hosted Michael Nelson and Kathleen Dean Moore, co-editors of “Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril,” as presenters for one of its monthly webinars. “Moral Ground,” first published in 2010 and recently reissued, is a collection of essays from more than 80 visionaries around the globe presenting a compelling call to honor people’s individual and collective moral responsibility to the planet. 

The intent of this essay contest is to hear from Delaware’s young visionaries and to encourage them to give voice to their own passions, perspectives, motivations, fears and hopes for the future.

A diverse panel of judges, joined by editors Moore and Nelson, will review and identify winning essays. Scoring will be based on clarity, passion, attention to theme, creativity and effectiveness. An awards ceremony will be held Saturday, April 18, at Delaware Botanic Gardens in Frankford.

As co-coordinator of this initiative, Lisa Locke has carefully read and reread every essay that has been submitted in the past four years. “I have been both shaken and inspired by their expressions of wonderment and grief, of compassion and outrage, by their calls for accountability and their hope-filled visions for the future,” said Locke. “We need to hear from these young visionaries.” 

To learn more, email questions to Lisa Locke at lisavlocke@gmail.com, or text or call Charanjeet Singh Minhas at 302-359-2155.