The 2024 Poetry Gold winners of the Ocean Awareness Contest, Emily Ma and Chelsea Zhu, weave haunting yet hopeful verses that capture the urgency of our changing world. Emily’s poem, Three Things I Want to Give You to Make Sure That Tomorrow Is Not Too Late for My Hometown, reflects on rising sea levels, memory, and the quiet battle between fear and hope. Through images of sea walls, polaroids, and a heart beating with resilience, she reminds us that even as the tides rise, so too can our determination. Chelsea’s piece, Exhaustion / Exhalation, breathes life into the connection between personal and planetary well-being. She ties the struggles of asthma to the planet’s suffocation, finding solace in the small yet powerful acts of sustainability—compost bins, gardens in classrooms, and the way nature cradles our existence. Their words challenge us to see climate change not as a distant threat, but as a story written in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the actions we take every d...