My Story LSWHTA Enrique Mercado

My name is Enrique Mercado and I started the program as a sophomore at Cholla High School. I decided to apply to this program for two main reasons. One being my brother and Ms. Esquer encouraging me and telling me to join this program and to not miss out on this opportunity. Second reason being that I want to know as much from different careers as possibly before making my decision on what to study.

Trip to Saguaro West. It was our first meeting and we were barely getting to know each other. I had a fun time and I enjoyed to try and think about the meaning of the (forgot word; drawing in a rock).

Trip to Casa Grande. Really surprising and I still think about how smart these people were. Making a building that big with resources found in the ground and for it to still stand after centuries is amazing to think about.

Trip to Tumacacori and San Xavier Mission. Highlight for me was the river at Tumacacori, such a beautiful and peaceful place. Beautiful architecture on both places and so much history and stories in both of the locations.

Fort Lowell made me think about that everywhere we are someone has been there, and everywhere there’s been people there is a history behind it.

One of my favorite activities was to fly the drones. I had a little bit of a rough landing but the rest was super fun. I would love to try it again.

This was at Pima College. We recorded artifacts in a graph and my math brain really enjoyed to do this activity.

The ceramic making was one of my favorite things we did all program, the group being together and everyone having fun made me feel like I was with my family.

This day at the U of A we had an archeology learning day. We saw (forgot the guy name) make arrowhead and after I had a lot of fun practicing spear throwing.

This was the first time we put up our tents and my first time every putting up a tent. It was fun to see everyone learning how to put them up and I think I did good for my first time.

Learning how tree ring dating is done was super interesting to hear and see. Also it taught me how much nature and wildlife could say about its environment. I loved hearing the story behind the tree ring dating building and it was a learning experience

Final trip

Montezuma Castle and Well. First time seeing the Grand Canyon, to this day it doesn’t look realistic.

Grand Canyon tower, the best view of the canyon in my opinion. The leasson with the tribe member fire archeologist was so fun and interesting , He has such a great energy and the passion he has for his job it’s so special. Also we had a whole park for ourselves which was really cool to experience.

Wupatki was so interesting and lunch there was by far the best. It felt like real no filter archeology. Tot think about the ventilation hole and the technology stills blows my mind. Walnut canyon had some awesome views and sprinting my way back up the canyon was awesome.

Tuzigoot was enjoyable but I think most of us were too tried to fully enjoy it. The surrounding area was cool to look at think about the purpose of such areas.

This program helped me a lot to get to know myself, my culture, and the cultures that once were in the land we know live.

I just want to take my last slide to thank everyone who had a part of making this program possible. This program was such a fun experience and an interesting one. Hopefully next year more students get to enjoy this experience. I’m thankful I was one of the students selected to this program and I wish the best for everyone that participated and for the ones who made this possible.

Appreciate