I started off this class knowing that I wanted to research animals, but I was not certain what specific animal I wanted to research. I picked a few animals that I was interested in (cats, foxes, elephants) and did brief research on each and would make my decision from there. I ended up picking elephants because they are one of my favorite animals and they are very interesting and beautiful creatures. 

After doing some brief research on elephants, I decided that I wanted to focus specifically on animal behavior because this is a topic that interests me. I read a bunch of journal articles about the behavior of a variety of elephants which included both Asian and African elephants as well as elephants that lived in the wild and lived in zoos. Once getting through some articles, I started to search for a mentor who would help me continue my research. I came across Dr. Shermin de Silva who studies Asian elephants in Sri Lanka. She recommended me a few more journal articles to read as well as helping me plan my research project proposal. 

With the help of Dr. de Silva, I was able to complete my proposal and start conducting my research project. I planned on observing and comparing the behavior of elephants in zoos and in the wild by using two elephant webcams I found online (one from the San Diego Zoo Safari Park and another from Tembe Elephant Park). Even with COVID occurring, I was able to continue my research project as I did everything from home. This year after completing my project and paper, I entered the Regeneron Science Talent Search contest, a competitive science research contest for high school students across the United States. Entering this contest and doing this research project gave me a lot of valuable research experience and taught me new skills that I will definitely be using in the future. 

This fall I will be attending the University of Florida and will be majoring in zoology. In college I hope to have multiple research opportunities and maybe even study abroad. In the future I aspire to work with animals and do conservation work to help save endangered specie that live in our world.