Letter to the Judges

Woodstock, Georgia 30188
April 16, 2015
Judges, Senior Project
Sequoyah High School
4485 Hickory Road
Canton, GA 30115
Dear Judges:
My name is Ansley Petherick, and I am looking forward to sharing with you my Senior Project
and all that I have learned and accomplished in the process. I am an honors/AP student at
Sequoyah High School, where I participate in the art program and several clubs and
organizations. In my time at Sequoyah, I have been a part of the Latin Club, National Art Honor
Society, and the National Honor Society. I am president of Sierra Club, vice president of Habitat
for Humanity, and have lettered in varsity Academic Team. I have received recognition for
placing first in the state level PTSA Reflections visual arts contest in my sophomore year and
have been awarded four Principal’s Patches (school recognition of non-athletic
accomplishments) through my endeavors in the art department. This year, I was recognized as a
NMSP Commended Student for my PSAT scores and as the 2015 STAR Student for my SAT
scores. In December I committed to Vanderbilt University, where I plan to major in biological
sciences. I chose to become certified as a Georgia Adopt-a-Stream volunteer for my Senior
Project because I am deeply passionate about environmental science. I value the importance of
contribution to the knowledgebase of stream data for the organization, and I wanted to evaluate a
habitat that was very personal to me.
To accompany my project, I researched the causes and impacts of ocean acidification since the
Industrial Revolution, a topic which I find equally intriguing and troubling. In an age of rapid
fuel consumption, accumulating atmospheric carbon is devastating to the chemistry of our seas.
Although not widely recognized by the public, this is one of the most pressing climate change
issues of our time. The oceans are a carbon sink, and as they mitigate the greenhouse effect in the
atmosphere, they do so at the cost of a plunging pH. The acidifying phenomenon is already
impacting calcifying marine life, and may spell disaster in the next century for the most fragile
and necessary of ocean keystones.
My project investigated the chemistry that fosters aquatic life on a much smaller scale. From
June to December, I collected data regarding the health of my stream site for the Adopt-a-Stream
database. In the beginning of the summer, I obtained my certification in chemical, bacterial, and
macroinvertebrate stream testing over the course of two days. At the end of each of the next six
months, I trekked down to my site to fill bottles and conduct tests. I bagged water samples to
transport on ice to the county sewage and water lab, where I plated petri pads for incubation.
Every three months from the first event, I collected samples from the riffle bottom of the stream
and searched for larvae to compute a water quality index score. From the beginning, the
management of the many chemical tests was a struggle; several tests have waiting times, and
balancing multiple tests at once was a challenge. I progressed from reading and rereading the kit
instructions for each test each time, stumbling through two samples for each test at the stream
bank for hours, to performing a choreographed ritual with glassware and titration syringes each
month. Slowly, I began to understand the life in the creek that was the playground of my
childhood.
As I step out into the world of university research, the skills I have gained over the course of my
Senior Project, from vital practice with lab techniques to the use of data to critically evaluate a
new sample, will be invaluable to me. When I began this project, I explored veterinary medicine
as a career extension of these abilities and learned much about confident evaluation and
diagnosis in any analytical field. While I believe I would succeed in the practice and would
remain passionate about the work, I plan to pursue biological research instead. I hope to enter a
graduate program to assist and conduct research after completing my undergraduate work,
eventually pursuing a doctoral degree and work in research and academia.
I am incredibly appreciative of the time you have spent in reading this letter and reviewing this
journey. I hope you enjoy my presentation and that you can glimpse from my work some of my
passion for the natural world. It is a privilege to be able to share with you what I have gained
through this process. Thank you for your attention and consideration.
Sincerely,
Ansley Petherick