Students react both positively and negatively towards David Breashears’ assembly.

Lauren Yang | Staff Reporter

On Monday Oct. 6th, Menlo School welcomed David Breashears, a climber, a photographer, and a filmmaker, to present during a school wide assembly. Breashears summited Mount Everest five times, co-produced the first IMAX film on Everest ever called “Everest”, and founded GlacierWorks, a non-profit organization aimed towards raising awareness towards climate change in the mountain ranges of South Asia.

Breashears’ insight and experience provided sophomores with valuable information in the grade-wide book they are reading, “Into Thin Air”. “[Breashears’ presentation] provided a new perspective for us, especially as a tenth grader, to have a deeper understanding of what we were reading about,” sophomore Mina Mahmood said.

Others liked the presentation due to Breashears’ take on climate change. “I thought the climate issue was interesting in that it is so prominent in today’s society and is such a big issue.” freshman Sophie Siminoff said. Hearing about climate change and actually seeing the impact drew students in because this issue is pertinent to everyday life.

Freshman Keeton Martin liked how Breashears provided visual evidence for his claims. “[Breashears] showed photos from the 1900’s to now and you could really see the impact climate change was having on Mount Everest. You could see the trails and the trash all over [the mountain],” Martian said.

Although numerous students admired Breashears’ accomplishments, they left the assembly feeling underwhelmed. “I thought the speaker did not know what he was doing. He was all over the map in terms of what he was saying,” senior Ethan Wong said. Even though Breashear is well accomplished, the presentation itself did not resonate with some of the audience. He touched on too many topics and didn’t have a main focus.

Students also felt that the message of the presentation was not clear. “Although I think his quirkiness did alleviate potential boredom, I think some of the things he said were not thought out […and] I think he didn’t organize his message clearly enough,” junior Scott Stevens said.

Overall, Breashears’ talk garnered positive reactions towards the information delivered but negative feedback towards his presentation style.