Winners of Essay Contest
Winners of Essay Contest
  • Observer
  • 승인 2007.07.25 11:17
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  The 1st English Essay Contest hosted by the Yeungnam Observer for high school and university students in Daegu and Gyeongbuk region was held at the grand hall in the International Building on 3 November. In this contest, 51 high school students and 35 university students took part. After the contest, four judges examined 16 high school student essays and 9 university student essays which passed through the preliminary screening. Among 16 essays written by high school students, the first prize went to Jang Jung-min, the 3rd year at Hyehwa Girls' High School, the 2nd prize to Kim Na-rae and the recommendation prize to Choi Da-hye, both from Gyeongbuk Foreign Language High School. In addition, among 9 essays by university students, the only one essay turned out to be prize-worthy. Four judges unanimously agreed that three essays by high school students and one by university student are deserved to win prizes. Here we present the first prize winning essay from the high school division in its original version and the recommendation essay from the university division in a slightly revised version by the author herself. ---Ed

The First Prize Winner in High School Division

  First of all, I would like to express my gratitude for the judges who gave me this grand prize. Since I was accepted to the university earlier, I could have the opportunity to participate in this English essay contest hosted by the Yeungnam Observer, the university English magazine. By entering into this contest, I could indeed realize the importance of writing essay in the era of globalization. I really appreciate this honorable prize and will work much harder than before to be a good diplomat who contributes to the development of Korea in the international arena in the future. Once again, thank you very much.

  When we appreciate the traditional artworks made by our ancestors, we can clearly notice what the common thesis is. It is nature. As those masterpieces reflect, our ancestors, mostly Koreans, put a great importance on nature, saying that we, people, are only the small part of nature, thus we should consider it as our lifetime friend. It is indeed true. Unlike Western people who always emphasized the fact that people should conquer the whole nature, Asian people tried to preserve nature with all their effort and even tried to respect and adore it. However, because of the huge influence of the Industrial Revolution, Asian people also changed their attitudes toward nature and started to think of it only as a means of achieving scientific development. Since then, all the human kinds despised the value of the environment and focused on human lives not considering the consequences of environment pollution at all. Suddenly, however, people, mostly from the developed countries, started to realize that the environment has contaminated so much and the effects of it would directly influence people and the nations. They eventually realized nature is in trouble. All of the nations are seriously in emergency and it is evident that there should be some solutions to alleviate the problems. Still it is true that nature and human should remain the harmonious relationship because they affect greatly with each other. It is indeed urgent to think about the practical things both the nations and individuals can do to save the environment and protect it from the worse situation.
  To begin with, we should precisely recognize what the major problems regarding the environment are. Although there exist so many environment problems ranging from water contamination to air pollution, the most imminent problems are reducing number of availability years and global warming. As everyone is familiar with, people are using too much resources. According to the recent article that I read in the TIME megazine, the availability years of energy resources are decreasing dramatically which means that we can no longer use the resources such as coal and petroleum in the near future which are absolutely necessary for human lives. Therefore, it is unavoidable that alternative energy should be developed as soon as possible. In addition, the problem of global warming is serious, indeed. As the earth gets warmer, diverse extraordinary phenomena are increasing more and more. Natural disasters like floods and droughts are making people in poor countries unable to continue their living. What is more, in fact, the condition of the earth is becoming more deteriorated since people are continuously polluting water, air and soil. Despite the magnificent development of human lives, worsening nature which is in serious trouble is threatening people from living. We really should face the reality and try to find out the solutions immediately.
   
Considering the practical things we can do to help nature, we should, at first, abandon the way of thinking that the environment is apublic property. The major cause that makes people not to care nature well is "the crisis of common." Suppose nature is my own private property. I will do everything I can do to protect nature. I assume that most of the people will care nature with all their effort if this environment belongs to them. However, people consider nature as "public property" and hesitate protecting and saving, mainly because they believe someone else will do care it. This phenomenon is, we call, the crisis of common. The truth is, however, nature should be considered as everyone's private property and everyone belongs to nature. I insist that people recognize the very fact and try to care nature as their lovely property. Moreover, with that kind of thinking, people should not overuse the resources, should not pollute water, air and soil, and should try their best to recycle as much as possible. Although it is quite hard to save nature, if people try to take into actions starting with tiny, little things like not littering in the ground, I'm sure that nature will soon recover to its original condition.
   Furthermore, nations should also devise new policies that can contribute to the preservation of the environment. In the era of globalization, countries all over the world started to regard pollution as an internationally solved problem. Nations tried to cooperate with each other by having meetings such as Liu Conference in 1992 where the representatives of each nation talked about the development and the environment and so on. Moreover, countries, putting developed nations in the center, decided to make Kyoto Protocol in order to solve problems concerning global warming. It seems that countries are doing their utmost to make nature in the original condition. However, it is not working out well as they planned. The fact that The United States which is a super power country in the world is not in cooperation indicates that it is not being progressed well. Moreover, even the countries that are in the list do not try their best to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2). Hereafter, nations should really try to devise a practical policy to contribute to restoring nature. I would like to recommend that countries should try to regulate private companies which do not care about the environment and only care about maximizing their profits by imposing economic santions. I believe it will do a great change.
  In conclusion, I would like to mention the importance of nature to people once again that it is inevitable for both individuals and nations must do something practical as I mentioned above. As you know already, "sound and sustainable development" is the best way. However, it really needs effort. I believe we can live with our lifetime friend, nature.

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