When I was seven, my grandmother folded a paper crane from an old grocery flyer in our Houston backyard. She told me cranes used to fly over the rice fields of her village in China, that they mate for life, and were disappearing. That was how I learned about Mother Earth. One fold at a time.

Years later, my friend Mia leaned over during an EnviSci Club meeting and whispered, "I just need three more NHS hours." Around us, classmates scrolled during a slideshow on deforestation. Per the Aspen Institute (2025), only 12% of American teens feel informed about climate solutions. There, I saw, to fuel climate passion, I must be creative.

So I built Origami for Environmental Conservation. Through workshops, tutorials, and a global chapter network, we pair every fold with environmental science: endangered species, pollution, deforestation, water systems. In a Houston session, students folded paper boats from old newspapers while learning how 80% of ocean plastic enters through rivers (UNEP, 2024). The fold and the lesson are the same motion.

Our network has run workshops in Rockaway NY, Hamilton NJ, Houston TX, and 50+ countries, led by a team of 16. In March 2025, I testified before all 15 Texas SBOE reps in Austin, including my district rep Will Hickman, and our work was cited in the 2025 TXSBOE Resolution. Recognitions: WAFF Global Teen Leader through Three Dot Dash, Gloria Barron Prize, 40K+ on Insta @origami.forgood, and ISEF Grand/Special Awards for foldable water-toxin sensor research developed alongside our curriculum.

The next step: a free, downloadable K-12 curriculum teachers in Florida, Georgia, and other states without mandated climate education can run as workshops, lessons, or clubs. The first 50 printed kits ship to pilot classrooms in Fall 2026, with origami paper, species cards, and lesson plans tied to each fold.

After Mia folded her first sea turtle, she texted: "I didn't know plastic killed this many. Can we do another next week?"