About Me

Hey there!

I’m Aurora and I’m a sophomore studying Environmental Science with a concentration in biodiversity, conservation, and natural resources at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. This blog is a way for me to document my findings in Ecology Lab this Fall 2018 semester.

After completing my undergraduate studies I hope to move out to the West coast for graduate school. Eventually my career goal is to work for a zoo or nonprofit organization and help study and conserve endangered species. Environmental science is a more recent passion of mine. Growing up I was raised to be conscious of how my living habits effect the environment, but I hadn’t really considered a career in it until my Junior year of high school when my Biology teacher introduced me to the subject. Before deciding on my major, I wanted to be a chef!

On my campus I am a member of the Wildlife Zoology club where we do fun activities like wetland cleanups, river cleanups and zoo tours! Recently I went behind the scenes at the Knoxville zoo and got to meet a 150 year old tortoise that weighs a quarter of a ton! I love my cat and I have had a number of unusual pets throughout the years including millipedes and chickens! I’m a huge comic book nerd and I also enjoy Harry Potter and Star Wars. In my spare time I enjoy cooking, reading, hiking, volunteering at the local animal shelter and traveling.

Over this upcoming summer I will be traveling in Europe for 5 weeks! While I am in Europe I will be going to nine different countries including: Spain, France, England, Germany, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands and Greece! This will be my second and longest trip abroad and I couldn’t be more excited to revisit some of my favorite spots and discover new ones along the way. I have distant relatives living in the Czech Republic so I hope to be able to connect with them when I visit Prague.

Personally I care about ecology (and think others should too!) because I believe that we as human beings have an ethical responsibility to preserve and protect our living world for future generations. We aren’t the only species inhabiting the Earth and I believe other species have just as much of a right to their habitats as we do to ours. I feel as though the needs of animal and plant species gets shoved aside to meet the needs of our ever-growing population, and that observation is what really inspired me to work on the side of the animals with my career. A large part of conserving animal species will come from understanding how their interact with the biotic and abiotic factors in their environments, and that is where the study of ecology will come in handy.

For those who read my blog, I hope that you will leave with a better understanding of basic ecology than what you came with. My goal is to portray the information in a way that is both easy to understand and easy to connect with. This blog is different from some other science blogs in the sense that I am in the early stages of my scientific career and am learning the information at the same time my readers are.