Aldo Leopold Writing Contest
2024 Leopold Writing ContestESSAY SUBMISSION DEADLINE:
Thursday, February 15, 2024, at 6:00 pm The Leopold Writing Program invites New Mexico students in grades 6-12 to submit original essays for our 2024 Writing Contest. Please 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.” Essay PromptAre our tools better than we are? Think about tools in your life. Do they help or hurt your relationship with our ecological community? |
Each year, the Aldo Leopold Writing Contest invites New Mexico students in Grades 6-12 to submit essays in response to a carefully-crafted and thought-provoking prompt inspired by the writings of Aldo Leopold. Encouraged by their teachers, students delve into his philosophies of land stewardship, especially as set forth in A Sand County Almanac, and explore the relevance of Leopold's classic and timeless observations to issues that they experience personally, locally, and globally. Information about the essay topic will be published and distributed in the Fall, with a deadline for submission in the Spring. The Writing Contest is divided into three Categories: Grades 6-7, Grades 8-9, and Grades 10-12. A panel of volunteer judges evaluates each essay in these categories for responsiveness to the prompt, eloquence of expression, writing skill and language usage, and connection to Leopold's "land ethic." Judges choose First Place essayists in each of the three categories, as well as Honorable Mentions as merited. Each student winner receives a cash award and certificate. Since its beginning in 2009, over 2,000 students from schools in rural and urban communities around New Mexico have taken part in the annual Aldo Leopold Writing Contest. |
General Contest Details
ELIGIBILITY
Open to all students enrolled in grades 6-12 in public, private, and home schools in New Mexico.
Open to all students enrolled in grades 6-12 in public, private, and home schools in New Mexico.
CONTEST PARAMETERS
- Students must submit ORIGINAL work,
- Both student and sponsoring teacher must sign the contest entry form affirming that the essay is original and not assisted by AI software.
- One essay submission per person.
- Each essay must be uploaded or attached as an individual PDF file.
FORMAT AND AWARDS
ESSAY LENGTH by Category
Grades 6-7: 300-500 word essay
Grades 8-9: 400-600 word essay
Grades 10-12: 500-700 word essay
AWARDS
First Place in each Category: $750
Honorable Mention: $100 - up to 2 per Grade Level, at judges' discretion
Grades 6-7: 300-500 word essay
Grades 8-9: 400-600 word essay
Grades 10-12: 500-700 word essay
AWARDS
First Place in each Category: $750
Honorable Mention: $100 - up to 2 per Grade Level, at judges' discretion
THE ALDO LEOPOLD WRITING CONTEST
For 6th – 12th grade students in New Mexico, the Aldo Leopold Writing Contest is an effective and inclusive way to engage the next generation of citizen leaders in an urgent conversation about how to address the changing realities brought about by climate disruption, biodiversity loss, growing demand for fresh water, and other pressing global conservation issues.
It is effective not only because of how many it touches (the student participants, their schools, and their larger communities), but also because it gives voice to the writers with the most moral authority to discuss these issues: the generation most vulnerable to the consequences of inaction. It is inclusive because the essays are judged anonymously based on the character, relevance, and persuasiveness of the content, without regard to the writer’s race, origin, religion, or other factor. The Aldo Leopold Writing Contest is an organic way to diversify an essential conversation for society because it is expansive, wide-reaching, and merit-based.
