Two Generations of Bird Conservation: United in the Fight for Flight, by Jack Aronian

Process and Voice: Two Generations of Bird Conservation: United in the Fight for Flight 'Topia Talk by Jack Aronian 7th grade Our 8th Annual Youth Essay Writing Conference took a new form this year! We welcomed both essay submissions and pitches for what we call ‘Topia Talks, calling this year’s conference our Youth Essay Writing Symposium. We kept our traditional panel discussions during which writers shared excerpts from the essays they submitted, but we changed it up this year to give writers the freedom to present on a topic in the way they would like to, with audience participation feeding from their research and passion. It was a joy to see both longtime participants in our Essay Conference and new submitters share what they care about in an open, less curated part of our event. ‘Topia Talks are like Ted Talks. This is what we told submitters to help them understand what we were looking for. They were asked to write up a summary of their presentation, provide visuals, and include a section of audience participation to keep the room engaged and in discussion with their research and points. We had five incredible young writers share ‘Topia Talks in the first hour of our conference. All of these talks are available on our youtube channel!