On Saturday in Somerset, Ahren Kapur-Sarma will be recognized for winning 1st Place in the PreK-2 division of the Writing Contest. His winning essay is published below. 

My Dream Job, by Ahren Kapur-Sarma

My dream job is to be a marine biologist. It all started in first grade. I was looking for a  book to read and I found a book about whales in my classroom bookshelf. It was called “Whales: the gentle giants”. I started to read it and copy pictures from the book. When I was done with the  book I had learned fun facts about whales which made me want to learn much more about them  and the other creatures that live in the ocean. I started looking for more books on whales at the library.   

One book taught me about the evolution chain of a whale. Whales came from a mammal  that lived on land. We know they were land creatures because of the fossils of their ancestors that  were found in Pakistan. We also know that whales evolved from land because they breathe like us, not like fish. That is why whales and dolphins swim up to the surface of the sea to breathe.   

During my summer break this year, I went with my family to Quebec, Canada, where I  saw minke whales, fin whales, humpback whales and beluga whales in the Lawrence River and  the Saguenay River. It made me happy to see these beautiful creatures in their natural habitat.  But I was sad to read about whale hunting, because of which many whale species are endangered. I felt I should study sea creatures to know more about their lives and help them survive.   

Marine biologists are scientists who study ocean life. They try to understand the behavior  of sea animals and the facts about the world they live in. I want to be a marine biologist to use science to learn about the oceans and marine life. I want to use that knowledge to save their environment.  

I also want to be a marine biologist to discover new and unknown things about whales. At  the end of one book about whales I saw a picture of a sperm whale. When I looked closely at the  picture, I saw that it had a giant squid on its face. Then I read the paragraph about it, which described the biggest fight in the sea. A sperm whale and squid fighting each other. The sperm whale can dive three thousand feet deep and hold its breath for two hours at a time, to find giant squids which they love to eat. Like most toothed whales, sperm whales can make a clicking sound that can travel a long distance. They use this to find food by echo location.   

We know that sperm whales fight with giant squids because we see scars on their skin left by the suckers of the squid. However, scientists do not really know how they fight with each other. As a marine biologist, I want to study the duel between these two animals. Maybe I will  discover new information that will interest everybody.  

In science there are a lot of things we learn about whales. We know there are toothed whales and baleen whales, and we know that whales sing songs that they use to talk to each  other. We know that grey whale rarely have barnacles on their right side! We do not really know what the whale songs mean. We do not fully know why grey whales like to feed by scraping their  right side on the ocean floor. There are lot of things to find out and questions to answer about  marine animals. I think I will enjoy finding some of these answers.