Undergraduate / Passion is a necessary ingredient to success, it acts as the fuel to drive a person's ambition [2]

What is your favorite word and why?
To most people, climate change is just an ambiguous term they constantly hear on the news but to me, it is much more than that. In fourth grade I won the school science fair competition for conducting an experiment where I tested the effects of increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I produced a model of the Earth's atmosphere in two containers. In one, I captured oxygen, while in the other, I trapped carbon dioxide. I did not make it to the final round of the competition, but this basic experiment changed my life. This experience was the gateway to my continuous passion for reducing climate change.

This passion led me to create a program to educate younger students about environmental problems . One day at lunch, I was expressing my idea when one of my friends laughed and said "why would elementary school students care about the environment?" Everyone started laughing with her. "You care too much, stop wasting your time," another one of my friends told me as everyone nodded in agreement. I was shocked that my friends thought this way. Ironically, their snarky remarks enforced my determination to succeed. I wanted to show them that they are wrong, that my passion for the environment can enable me to make others passionate as well. A year later, at the end of the 8th session of my program, one student approached me and said "I am going to make sure that everything gets recycled and teach everyone about recycling!" That one remark proved to me that my passion for conserving the environment allowed me to make a difference . Passion is a necessary ingredient to success, it acts as the fuel to drive a person's ambition and that is why passion is my favorite word.

Undergraduate / I had produced a model of the Earth's atmosphere in two transparent containers - UPENN Supplement [5]

The Admissions Committee would like to learn why you are a good fit for your undergraduate school choice (College of Arts and Sciences, School of Nursing, The Wharton School, or Penn Engineering). Please tell us about specific academic, service, and/or research opportunities at the University of Pennsylvania that resonate with your background, interests, and goals. (400-650 words)

This is my UPENN essay, can you guys tell me how it is? Be as critical as possible!
"Climate change is the change in Earth's temperatures due to the increased amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere"
To most people, this is just the basic definition of one of the most controversial topics in the world; but to me, it is much more than that. This was a line I repeated, what felt to be, ten billion times, while I was practicing for my presentation for for the Southern Arizona Regional Science and Engineering Fair (SARSEF). It was fourth grade and I had won the school wide science fair competition at my elementary school for conducting an experiment to test the effects of increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I had produced a model of the Earth's atmosphere in two transparent containers. In one of them, I concealed just oxygen from the atmosphere, while in the other, I trapped carbon dioxide from my dad's car. I did not make it to the next round in the competition, but this basic experiment changed my life. This experience was the gateway to my everlasting passion for researching about climate change.

My interest for climate change continued to grow as I grew older; I religiously followed the climate summit that took place in Copenhagen, read numerous articles and periodically kept up with the news. I made it very clear that I wanted to pursue a career in this field but everyone repeatedly told me that I have to be a doctor or an engineer because there are no suitable careers in this field. At one point, I dejectedly accepted defeat and forgot about my dream of work in the environmental science field.

However, University of Pennsylvania helped me realize that everyone was wrong, I could indeed further my education in climate change research. In ninth grade, I came across an article talking about how students from UPenn went to Mongolia to do research about climate change. This article helped me prove to my parents that there are students at prestigious universities studying topics that I am keenly passionate about. From that moment on, University of Pennsylvania became my dream school.

That article also sparked my interest in studying abroad so I did some research and learned that UPenn also has an amazing abroad program. During the summer before my junior year of high school, I went on a volunteer trip to Jamaica which was an amazing experience. We volunteered at a local elementary school, built them a playground and painted a community center. We also went up to the mountains and visited an eco-village where everything the people do is eco-friendly. They compost everything, grow their own foods, conserve their energy as much as they possibly can. It is environmentally ideal. I had no idea that people actually lived in these sort of environments and found it to be captivating. I want to implement these practices in the United States, in the future. The trip was definitely an eye opening experience and I hope that it will not be my last. I believe that at Penn, I can combine these two interests and travel to a foreign country where I can conduct research on climate change.