[MUSIC PLAYING] As you can see, creative innovation spans across curriculum areas and disciplines. A creative innovator is someone with the ability to spot friction quickly, treat ideas like experiments, and move fast enough to learn on the go. Creativity is essential because real-world problems are messy and lack instruction manuals. My school has fostered us by consistently encouraging me in challenging environments, such as AP Chem, AP Physics II, and AP Calc BC, where if labs failed or analytic methods broke down, I learned to quickly switch to alternative procedures, such as using simulations, trying numerical methods, or redesigning experiments. Our district prioritizes creativity and critical thinking by assigning real-world projects. Students explore subjects they're interested in through frequent showcases and see the real-world implications of classroom topics. As part of the curriculum, students have the opportunity to earn credits for internships. This past year, I was part of a summer internship at the University at Buffalo for six weeks, where I worked on a project called Solaris, a project designed to analyze solar output at different altitudes. Our abstract was selected at NASA for presentation at the SmallSat conference and held at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. It was truly a transformative experience, where ingenuity and innovation were nationally recognized by the lead federal agency responsible for research in aeronautics and space exploration. I've learned these skills outside of the classroom, too, through involvement in extracurricular activities, such as the Technology Student Association and the Science Olympiad. These experiences have taught me how to apply broad scientific knowledge, think critically, and troubleshoot on the fly. Creative innovation lends itself to critical thinking, allowing someone who recognizes uncertainty and bias in their own and others' thoughts and weighs ethical consequences before deciding on an outcome. Simply put, a critical thinker is someone with matter behind their curiosity. [MUSIC PLAYING]