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Miami Palmetto High School senior Analysse Humaran was the spokesman on the Palmetto team that won the Aspen Challenge sponsored by the Bezos Foundation and the Aspen Institute.
“We won more than $50,000 to $60,000 in prize money,” she says. “I received $2,500 in scholarships.”
The eight team members also won computers, headphones, software, and other goodies such as tee shirts, backpacks and water bottles. Two teachers were advisors.
Her team was called Agents of Change, They developed a project called Let’s Be Green.
“Our project ended up being focused on education and action,” she says.
The challenge began in 2020 but then the COVID-19 lockdowns happened and everything stopped. Eventually, the project was brought back to life in February 2021. The available topics included the environment, gun violence, mental illness, poverty and immigration.
“We don’t necessarily expect to stop climate change, more like help people understand it and develop better habits since it’s unsustainable to continue the way we do now,” she says.
That included starting a podcast called Let’s Speak Green in late March.
“I keep the topics diverse,” she says. “We interview people or talk about policy and science.
We also present Climate 101 science lectures to high school biology classes to bridge the systematic educational gap on climate change and our environmental impact.”
The podcast continued throughout the summer.
“For the action part, we want to hand you the tools so you can go ahead and develop greener habits,” she says.
She secured permission to start a composting program at Palmetto. She also started a Meatless Monday campaign, asking the school to save the environment and mitigate their environmental impact by cutting out meat. They do this by adding a meatless dish to the lunch program on Mondays. They also convinced the school system to have Meatless Monday go county wide.
While there are naysayers to the concept of Meatless Monday, Humaran says it’s not her intent to ban burgers.
“I don’t want to strip anyone of their options,” she says. “I’m not trying to change you, I’m trying to introduce you to better habits.”
Humaran is a certified as a climate speaker by the CLEO Institute and she is the vice president of the Miami Youth Climate Summit, helping organize the event.
She’s president of Tutoring for Tomorrow, the student run non-profit tutoring service.
“We’re expanding our impact and streamlining company operations right now,” she says.
She’s led community service projects at Palmetto.
“The Thanksgiving drive is one that I do,” she says.
In fact, she received an award from School Superintendent Alberto Carvalho for her Thanksgiving Drive.
She also worked on a virtual Christmas Toy Drive via Amazon Wish List and got almost 300 people to donate toys.
She’s chairman of the Community Senate so she’s the liaison with the student activities director and has three other individuals that report to her.
Humaran is president of the Science National Honor Society. She participates in Science Bowl and Envirothon, Fairchild Challenge and the Lexus Challenge.
This past summer she participated in an Apple Engineering Camp and has participated in a Girls Who Code Summer Immersion program.
One summer she participated in a research internship at the Deering Estate doing a population study on Atala butterflies.
“As a caterpillar, they are bright orange and have black and blue stripes,” she says. “They were through to be extinct. I got to count hundreds of caterpillars and then a bunch of butterflies.”
She’s applied to MIT, the University of Florida, and Georgia Tech for engineering.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
