Today at the beach, I sat close to a spot where the river meets the canal. I like the walk from my house, especially now that it’s green. The neighborhood I live in is named for the river, el Pipo. The current is strong, fueled by all of the melting snow from these past sunny and warm days. Small swallows glide above the river, black with a white band above their tails. They remind me of the petrels and other gulls in the open ocean nearby, flying for hours so close to the sea without touching it. Someone asked the biologist if the birds get tired, or sit in the water as a break. But he said that they are so good at gliding that it actually doesn’t use more energy than sitting. On the beach, I imagined myself floating amongst the seaweed, in the forest when there’s a lot of sun. On the blades there are tiny urchins eating. A crab floats down the water column. A purple starfish uses its thousands of tube feet to climb up my arm. Some distance away a sea lion comes up for air. Further away, dolphins click to each other. And the river keeps flowing in, bringing fresh cold water like it does every spring. 

A part of Ushuaia that I love is the murals and street art. A lot of it is human-focused, art about women’s rights, veterans, and indigenous traditions. There’s also some beautiful and prominent art that depicts local sea life, forests, or birds. This type of art is integrated so beautifully into the city, something I wish there were a little more of back home. Nature is a part of everyone’s life here, being a small and isolated city surrounded by mountains and bogs. Most people here also care about issues like climate change. Naturally, the life around people shapes their views about it, but positive integration of artistic expression also helps a lot too. People I meet here love finding out that I’m an environmental science student, though sometimes it doesn’t feel fair that I’m here. I wish local students also had the opportunities that I get in my program, like excursions to regional parks and access to scientists as mentors. I love that public university is free to anyone in Argentina, but science can still be quite inaccessible. I’d like to think that art can help bridge that gap, and help young students be cognizant of studying what’s around them.