1. 1550 Owens Store Road Corbett, 4th
Canton, GA 30115 1104
7:15-8:15
April 18, 2012
Judges, Senior Project
Creekview High School
1550 Owens Store Road
Canton, GA 30115
Dear Judges:
My name is Halley Ramsey and I am a senior at Creekview High School. I am a
cheerleader that no one would ever think would like snakes. Little do most people know I
live with very many, and I have since I was two. When choosing a topic for my senior
project I wanted something that would be interesting for others and remove me from my
comfort zone. Growing up, my dad was always asked to do reptile parties and
presentations. He would take our animals to people’s houses and put on an educational
demonstration. I have always been his assistant, taking the animals out of the cages and
putting them back. However, this time he was my assistant and my goal was to do a
better job than he would if that were possible.
For my product, I contacted my fourth grade teacher at Acworth Elementary. I brought in
three different kinds of snakes, a blue tongued skink, a tortoise, and a scorpion for the
kids to observe and learn about. Everyone was given the opportunity to touch the more
docile animals and at the end they received a reptile themed goodie bag just as if they
were at an animal themed birthday party. The kids really enjoyed the presentation. My
paper correlates with my product because in order to stop rumors and wrong beliefs from
happening you have to start young and educate the children so they can change the past
misconceptions as they grow. I did run into a few issues with my project; the first one
being that I had to come up with a way I could do my project without missing school
because Acworth is around forty five minutes away one way. It would have taken almost
an entire day to complete. I then realized that Cobb County schools do not have the week
long breaks that Cherokee County has. So over winter break, my dad and I took a day to
complete my project. I also ran into trouble with my Walgreens photobook. After
completing it once, I was told I had to go to a different store and start over. It looked
great until I looked inside to find the pages out of order and duplicated. Although I did
not have to redo it again, I did have to wait for them to re-print another one which in the
end turned out very nice.
I wrote a paper on misconceptions and one of the main reasons why you do not find
many veterinarians for exotic animals is because of misconceptions. No one wants to
specialize in something they will have no use for and not very many people have pet
reptiles because they are afraid of them. If I were to become an exotic veterinarian, I
would be a rare breed because there are not many vets out there that want to work with
exotics. After finishing my project I also realized that although I would love to be a vet,

2. seeing hurt animals would start to get to me. I took three years of healthcare science and
fell in love with the idea of being a nurse. People will always need nurses, so I would
never have to worry about being out of a job. The urge to become a vet still comes up
from time to time so I will just have to see what happens. Although I may change my
plans for the future, my argument on the ridiculous misconceptions of snakes remains the
same.
In the end, I did accomplish my goal and my project turned out the way I had hoped. I
feel that because the students had not interacted with exotic animals before I influenced
them in a positive way. Even though the senior project added an extensive amount of
stress on me at the worst time, it taught me time management and what to do when
interacting with groups of children. I hope to especially use what I learned on time
management in the future. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Halley Ramsey