Hello, my name is Brandon Yadegari and this is what I will do to be a leader for a shared planet. 

I go to Catalina Foothills High School. At my school we have about  1,600 kids which means that our school requires a lot of energy. My plan is to first determine how much energy my high school consumes.  I will then determine the area of solar panels that would be required to power our entire school and if unrealistic, determine how many panels would be required to power at least a fraction of the schools power consumption based on current estimates of solar panel energy production. Once I have compiled all of my data I will contact the National Energy Education and Development Project (NEED) and talk to them about how I could introduce solar panels to my school. If they say that they would consider me for a grant, they I would go to the Superintendent of my school district and the Principal of my school and introduce them to the idea of writing a grant to have solar panels installed. If my idea is accepted, then me and the higher officials of my school district and school would put together a grant writing team and write a grant to the NEED Project. If our grant were to be declined, our school would still be excited about the idea of energy conservation because of how far we had gotten in the grant writing process. However, if accepted, our school could receive a full or partial grant to have solar panels installed and operated in the most cost effective way. This would mean that our school would produce little to no carbon emissions and therefore helping to save the Earth and inspire others to follow suit. 

On our first day of Earth Camp, our group was just getting to know each other. As our group was exploring the Desert Museum, we were all asking each other questions and what our interests were. On our adventures in the Desert Museum, Isabella and I , being the only Tucsonans in the group couldn't help but make fun of Reyna and Max's accent. After a while they got pretty annoyed about it and tried to make fun of our "Tucson Accent" but come on, we don't have an accent! Of our group of four, two of us our from Tucson and two of us are from Wisconsin. As we got to know each other we all realized that we would all be great friends that would remain friends even after Earth Camp was over. I built some great friendships while here at Earth Camp.

On our second day at Earth Camp, we went to the community food bank and a farmer's market. At the farmer's market we received a challenge from Amy in which we had to cook a meal for four, using only local products. However, whatever you couldn't find at the farmer's market you had to get from a grocery store. The catch was that the winner was declared by the number of miles that all the stuff that was used to make the food had traveled. The more total miles, the worse. Our group decided to cook a pasta sauce with chicken and spaghetti. Even though we ran into a few obstacles along the way, our dinner was the best tasting and most ecologically friendly. As a group, we learned that we had what it took to work together under pressure.

On our third day at Earth Camp, we went to Mount Lemmon. On our way up the mountain, our group was the first to notice how much the flora and fauna changed at different altitudes. We realized that as you went up in elevation, the flora and fauna had to be more adapted to colder temperatures and the ones and lower elevations had to be more adapted to extreme desert temperatures. Once we finally reached the top, we took an amazing hike up to the wildfire watchtower. From the watchtower, we witnessed one of the most amazing views from almost 10,000 feet above sea level. From our vantage point, our group was able to recognize the damage from monsoon storms during the summer and the river flows out of the mountains and into Sabino Canyon.

On our second day in Kino Bay, Mexico, our team got to go out with our group leader Franklin to find a snorkel spot for the rest of the group and to witness firsthand the human impact on the Sea of Cortez. While we were out, we saw beaches lined with trash which really made us want to help clean them up. As we moved on to the peaks along the coast, we saw how beautiful the polluted land was and that was what made us want to do something. Once we had found our snorkel spot, we took a hike up one of the peaks that were on the coast. From the top we could see all of Kino Bay and La Isla Del Tiburon and all of the surrounding ocean. At that point we could see that the land was most definitely worth saving.