Honors College
In 2013 I was accepted into Old Dominion University Honors College. Among the requirements of Honors College I had to complete three contract courses and a Civic Learning Project.
Contract courses included engaging with professors and completing a project outside of class time under their supervision. The courses I chose for this were Invertebrate Zoology, Botany, and RUMS (Research for Undergraduates in Math and Science).
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For the Zoology Contract Course, under the supervision of Dr. Edgerton, I wrote a mock grant proposal on Jellyfish inspired by the Virginia Aquarium. The Aquarium at the time was planning on opening a jellyfish exhibit and the staff was trying to breed their own jellyfish. My grant set up an experiment to find the best laboratory environment to breed jellyfish.
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For the Botany Contract Course, under the supervision of Dr. Nessius, I conducted an experiment on Elodea and researched how chloroplast respond to different colors of light. The experiment results were written as a scientific article and sent to a publication, but unfortunately was not accepted.
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My accomplishments in the RUMS Contract Course is located under the Research Experience tab.
For the Civic Learning Project I volunteered with The Virginia Aquarium on weekends, totalling 400 hours. My volunteer supervisor, Becca Thomas, Senior Aquarist, told me about the new animals the aquarium will be obtaining in the up-coming years. I created a reference book including a summary page and collected three to six scientific articles for each new animal. I presented the book to the dean of Honors College, then gifted it to the aquarium.
Table of Contents for Aquarium Reference Book
Jellyfish Mock Grant Proposal
Elodea, Chloroplast Movement
I am dropping off the Reference Book in my hands to the aquarium.
2013