Hi, I'm Ashley! I writing to you all from Ecuador, but I actually grew up in Pennsylvania. The land I lived on shaped my life in many ways. In my original hometown of Southeast Pennsylvania, you could find a mix of everything. The city of Philadelphia was close by, but outside my house were large cornfields, too! We also had lots of towns, schools and shopping malls, but after school we would hike the beautiful local rivers, lakes and trails that were practically in our backyards. This is how I spent much of my childhood: immersed both in nature and also in what many may believe to be the "comforts" of our "modern" world.
I also grew up at my Dad's house in a more northern, and emptier, part of the state. The town is called Frackville. Its name comes from the reason the town was built: fracking. Do you know what that is? It's a technique mining companies use to get natural gas to power things like our heating. However, it can create a lot of destruction. Do you know where Hawai'i gets its source of electricity?
Frackville had a lot of coal mines too, which my ancestors worked in when they immigrated to America. The coal mines were not a fun place to be, because they were dangerous and the workers often didn't have many rights.
