Extra Credit- Go Big Read Event

Tonight I attended the Go Big Read event "Using our Stories for a Cause." At the beginning of the event, a PHD student and TA/Professor explained to those of us who have never been to a Go Big Read event what they are all about. He told us about the book that is being targeted by the reading group; it is called I am Malala. He spoke about her and how she is very well known and outspoken about her causes, but is also only 17 years old. As many of us are teenagers or in our early twenties, this girl is not far off from us. This girl was the inspiration for the event, which consisted of seven speakers telling a story for a cause that they were passionate about.

There was a wide range of speeches including more personal type stories along with more factual and logical information. The speech that stuck out most to me was a speech given by a girl named Amanda Hoyer, and it was about the scarcity of water on Earth. This topic is something that I think is often overlooked by humans, because water is just something that we assume will always be there. Her explanation demonstrated otherwise. She spoke about the misuse of water siting that nearly 60% of safe drinking water is used in watering our lawns. This stat nearly blew me away. I had a class in high school called Landscape Ecology in which we learned about this sort of thing. My teacher always talked about how someday the earth will fight back against the overpopulation problems we currently have, but I had kind of forgotten about this after being a couple years out of his class. This girl made a very good argument that was really powerful. I commend her in her courageousness, because there were a lot of people in that room that I think was slightly unexpected for all of the speakers.

Overall this was a great experience, because it was something that I never would have known to attend myself. The students that spoke all had awesome and interesting speeches, and it was pretty cool to learn that they were all normal students who were not into public speaking prior to this semester.