About Leo McGuinness

My name is Leo Frances McGuinness. I am a high school senior who attends the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School. Some of my strengths/skills are: presenting, public speaking, debating, poetic writing and communication. These skills have helped me complete a great number of assignments, both academic and personal as well as aided me in obtaining prestigious internships, establishing important connections and discovering new job opportunities. My aspiration is to work in the field of marine science and attending the Harbor School has provided me with a strong foundation to accomplish this goal. Being able to attend marine biology classes virtually every day of my high school career and work on my own independent research project has helped me develop the skills and proper practices necessary to be a marine biologist.

Hobies

Football

Football has been my favorite sport for as long as I can remember. My favorite part about football has always been catching the ball. There is something addictive about playing receiver-being able to jump up and make a play not only for myself but for my team. I have always been (and always will be) a huge fan of the Baltimore Ravens. I started playing contact football for the New York Lions when I was in 8th grade. Prior to that, I had played 3 years of flag football. Last year I was Captain of the New York Lion's and the year before that, I won the the League's student Athlete award. Unfortunately, due to scheduling conflicts and school commitments I was not able to join the team this year. However, I would very much like to walk onto a college football team.

Scuba Diving

Scuba Diving Is something that I love to do. I earned my open water certification in 2016, prior to transferring to the Harbor School and hoped I would be able to join the Scuba C.T.E ("Career Technical Education"). However, when I transferred, the Scuba C.T.E. was already filled to capacity. Although I was initially disappointed, in retrospect I am glad that I chose the Marine Biology C.T.E. Even so, I like to go diving whenever I can and look forward to obtaining additional diving certifications. Thus far, I have only gone diving 8 times (including my certification dives) and each and every one of those 8 dives has been an amazing adventure. The ocean is so vast and unexplored and for me, every dive is a privilege filled with surprise encounters. My favorite part about diving is interacting with and observing aquatic life in their natural environment. I am used to seeing marine animals displayed in labs or aquariums, where they are out of their natural habitat and confined to small spaces. It is truly spectacular in contrast to be able to witness marine creatures freely moving around and interacting in their own habitat. When I am submerged underwater, I am respectfully aware that I am a visitor in their home and even that I am the one on display.

Biking

I love biking. Not only is it environmentally friendly, it's an extremely quick and reliable mode of transportation, which is especially important in New York City. Both of my parents are avid year-round bike riders who taught me the benefits of biking at an extremely young age (I was riding on bikes before I knew how to crawl). When I was about 13 years old, I became interested in and started to ride, fixed gear bikes. Since then I have become much more involved as a bike rider. I ride my bike to school almost every day and use it to get around most places in the City. Growing up, my Dad taught me about the mechanics of a bicycle so that I would be able to work on and fix my own bikes. In addition to being an excellent non-polluting form of transportation, biking is a great workout. Riding a fixed gear bike has especially helped keep me in shape and has made my leg and calf muscles strong which in turn has helped me in sports.

Interests

Marine Science

Ever since I was young I have loved the ocean and the creatures that dwell within. It is truly fascinating to me how they live and coincide with one another. As a race, humans know very little about the oceans and what goes on beneath the sea. Oceans cover more than 70 percent of Earth's surface, and well over 50% of the world's ocean are unexplored. There are more than a million species of marine life in the oceans, from microscopic zooplankton to the the blue whale, the biggest mammal in the world. There is still so much to explore and learn from in depth research and I would be overjoyed to help decipher the mysteries of the oceans.

History

History Is a subject that fascinates me. It is incredible to look into the past and see all the changes that have occurred, all the theories that have been disproven and all the advances we have made as a race. The fact that people from different time periods and different cultures, have completely different outlooks on life truly puts things into perspective for me. It is especially interesting to me that people find some historic beliefs and laws to be preposterous and barbaric and think it is absurd that people actually used to believe those things. This makes me wonder what ideas, laws and "facts" our generation believes that will be disproven and labeled as illogical, what laws will be labeled as barbaric. It is mind boggling to me that in 1000 years future generations will look back at our generation in the same way we look back on prior civilizations.

Philosiphy

Many people become so wrapped up in life that they take things for granted. People become so focused on how to do something that they lose track of why they are doing it. Math is a good example: many consider math to be the key to unlocking the universe's greatest secrets. However math is nothing but a human construct, an idea a philosophy. Mathematics was invented not discovered. Numbers were created by humans as a way to rationalize their surroundings. Mathematics gives humans a sense of comfort and instills in us the idea that there is a right answer and a wrong answer. It distracts people from the fact that we don’t really know anything about anything. We know only what we choose to believe.

Water Pollution

The marine ecosystem is crucial to sustaining life on earth. Humans have, time and time again, shown an utter disregard for the health of the aquatic ecosystems and the creatures inhabiting them. For decades, we humans have been using waterways as our own personal aquatic garbage disposal. By continuing to dump more and more pollutants into our waterways humans have made it extremely difficult for marine animals to sustain life. Aquatic pollution spreads harmful substances such as oil, plastic, industrial/agricultural waste, toxic runoff/discharge and chemical particles which contribute to biomagnification, plastic entanglement, lack of photosynthesis and so many other hazardous side effects. The health of our waterways becomes more critical with every passing day.

Leo E-Portfolio