It's that time of year again: the time for my eighth grade honors project to begin.
Every year, the students in honors classes in my district have to participate in a project that creates a solution to a problem. The teachers, or other staff involved, encourage students to base their project on something they are interested in so that they know what problem they want to fix, and so that they are more interested in the project. The topic I'm researching is the misinformation chain pet stores, more specifically pet smart and petco, give out to their customers.
I have reviewed the care guides of the Russian tortoises, leopard geckos, and bearded dragons, and there are is some very false information on some of them, for example:
This is a portion of petco's Russian tortoise care sheet. It is some of the many errors you can find in any of their care sheets.
With this project, my hope for a product would be depending on my conclusion from the data I receive, which is where you guys come in!
Last year for my project, I conducted research as to how and why pyramiding forms, and presented it to the class, along with a live video feed of my tortoise. My presentation was a hit, and the judges gave me good scores, but there was something that made me not win: the lack of data. That data, sadly, was very hard to come by when how pyramiding happens (which, by that I mean how it forms structurally, not the causes) is not known, and we have only recently learned more about the correct care of tortoises.
For this project will need the help of many people around America with pet smarts or petcos around them. What I need you to do is, next time you visit a petco/petsmart, take a picture of the enclosures of: the bearded dragons, whatever tortoises they have, the leopard geckos, and the ball pythons, and all I need after that is the state and city that store is in!
I hope to get many different samples of data for this. This data will help me learn what percentage of chain pet stores are doing things right, and which ones shouldn't be selling reptiles at all. It will also let me see common mistakes made, and how it will help me educate other people who don't know of these things.
To people who have gotten any animal from Petco or Pet Smart-
Please share your experience! It doesn't matter if it's a good experience or a bad one, both are very beneficial to my project. I hope to see what you send me, and if you have any recommendations at all, please tell me!(and also I'm not sure what section to put this under lol)
Every year, the students in honors classes in my district have to participate in a project that creates a solution to a problem. The teachers, or other staff involved, encourage students to base their project on something they are interested in so that they know what problem they want to fix, and so that they are more interested in the project. The topic I'm researching is the misinformation chain pet stores, more specifically pet smart and petco, give out to their customers.
I have reviewed the care guides of the Russian tortoises, leopard geckos, and bearded dragons, and there are is some very false information on some of them, for example:
This is a portion of petco's Russian tortoise care sheet. It is some of the many errors you can find in any of their care sheets.
With this project, my hope for a product would be depending on my conclusion from the data I receive, which is where you guys come in!
Last year for my project, I conducted research as to how and why pyramiding forms, and presented it to the class, along with a live video feed of my tortoise. My presentation was a hit, and the judges gave me good scores, but there was something that made me not win: the lack of data. That data, sadly, was very hard to come by when how pyramiding happens (which, by that I mean how it forms structurally, not the causes) is not known, and we have only recently learned more about the correct care of tortoises.
For this project will need the help of many people around America with pet smarts or petcos around them. What I need you to do is, next time you visit a petco/petsmart, take a picture of the enclosures of: the bearded dragons, whatever tortoises they have, the leopard geckos, and the ball pythons, and all I need after that is the state and city that store is in!
I hope to get many different samples of data for this. This data will help me learn what percentage of chain pet stores are doing things right, and which ones shouldn't be selling reptiles at all. It will also let me see common mistakes made, and how it will help me educate other people who don't know of these things.
To people who have gotten any animal from Petco or Pet Smart-
Please share your experience! It doesn't matter if it's a good experience or a bad one, both are very beneficial to my project. I hope to see what you send me, and if you have any recommendations at all, please tell me!(and also I'm not sure what section to put this under lol)
