Have you ever created the blueprints for Californian Sea Lions? Well, the current sophomores at Cretin-Derham Hall (CDH) did! In the past few months the sophomores throughout CDH worked to create the perfect exhibit and enrichment for the Minnesota Zoo, and their hard work paid off with CDH sweeping the final results. Out of hundreds of schools participating, first, second, and third all went to CDH for their final exhibits, with Nora Merlin and Lexi Jacobson taking
first. Although many of the sophomores worked incredibly hard, the high number of participants meant only a select number of students were selected for the final decision at the Minnesota Zoo.
The selected students had a big responsibility, and when asked how she felt about the prospect of her work being constituted in real life for animals at a zoo, Madison Gerham said,
“It feels like a great honor that the zoo could even use some of my group’s ideas to build an exhibit for the Californian Sea Lions, and I am really excited to see where this takes my group.”
Madison, Zora Omann, Nora Tachney, and Amelia Meier, ended up taking the third place award for their exhibit, and when Zora Omann was asked about how she grew and what she gained from this experience, she stated, “I feel that I have grown through this experience through learning how to collaborate with my peers in a project and setting like this, where we had so much freedom and possibility, while also including everyone’s ideas. This really helped me discover my interest in ecology and marine biology, which is a passion I hope to pursue in the future”
The Zooms project of 2026 has come to a wrap, but thd tradition of entering this competition is
set to continue for all the incoming sophomores! This project was a fun new adventure for this year’s biology students, and the hard work that shined through is something for all of CDH to be proud of. This year the California Sea Lions were helped by CDH students, and who knows what future creatures will come next.
