One area of study that I am interested in is zooeyia and how human health can benefit from interacting with animals. In my essay about Animal Assisted Therapy that I completed for one of my Animal Science courses, I investigated how the use of therapy dogs can be beneficial to cancer patients undergoing treatment. It is a goal of mine during my undergraduate career to further study the use of therapy dogs with cancer patients. More specifically, pediatric cancer patients and the long term psychological effects that AAT may have on the individuals.

In late September I had the opportunity to go “behind the scenes” at the Manatee Coast of the Columbus Zoo with other Bio Sci Scholars. We were able to spend the majority of day exploring the zoo until it was time to go see the manatees. At Manatee Coast, we were able to go into the back rooms where zoo staff perform all their tasks in order to take care of the manatees. This included the kitchen where the food is prepared and the area where the quarantine tank is located which is mostly used for medical check ups and manatee transportation. We also went out on the dock above the manatees’ aquarium and fed them heads of lettuce. It was interesting to learn about the circumstances in which the manatees come into the care of the Columbus Zoo (for rehabilitation reasons) and all of the work that goes into caring for these animals. Going into this trip, I was unaware that the manatees arrive at the zoo to be rehabilitated and then released back into the wild in Florida, so when I discovered that this was the case, it made the whole experience even more fascinating to me because wildlife rehabilitation is a career that I would like to pursue.

I constructed my research essay, Nonhuman Animal Emotions and Human Morals in Animal Testing, during the second half of my senior year in high school for my senior project known as “Capstone.” This essay synthesizes multiple areas of study ranging from psychology to philosophy in order to support my argument that animal testing should be eliminated altogether. For about nine weeks, I compiled over 190 pages of research from various sources and organized points into one cohesive essay.

I chose to upload this essay for my artifact because it illustrates how much work I put into research when it is a topic I feel strongly about and it shows that animal welfare is one of those topics. While producing this essay, it made me even more passionate about my future working with animals because the research that I found amplified my belief that animals are entitled to the same moral consideration as humans.