The Pittsburgh Zoo's KidScience and Zoo University programs paved the way for me to travel to a place I have always dreamed of seeing. For a week this month, I will watch the annual polar bear migration.

I started going to the zoo for KidScience when I was 12. In 2006, I attended Zoo University.

This past summer, I was chosen to represent the zoo as the first Arctic Ambassador to Polar Bear International's (PBI) Leadership Camp in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, the "Polar Bear Capital of World."

Each year, polar bears migrate through Churchill, which is a three-hour flight north of Winnipeg. The town of Churchill has a research station and has worked to coexist with the environment and creatures that inhabit it. The city moved its town dump indoors so that the polar bears would not scavenge there for food, a bad habit that makes them dependent on humans for food and can endanger Churchill residents.

On my trip, I hope to learn a lot about polar bears and what we can do to help protect them.

Leadership Camp will help me develop the skills to lead and make changes to help save the environment. I believe we must conserve this Earth for ourselves but we must also protect other forms of life because they have as much right to live as we do.

I hope to see many polar bears and other life on the tundra when I go to Canada. I have always wanted to see the Northern Lights and I love cold weather. I will have a chance to ride on a helicopter and see abandoned polar bear dens.

The Tundra Buggy rides will be cool, too. The buggies allow you to observe polar bears in a safe way. Tundra Buggies are large vehicles equipped with their own generators and beds for passengers. When several buggies are linked together, they look like a train on giant tractor wheels. We will be staying on a Tundra Buggy for five days.

I am excited to meet other people who share my enthusiasm about animals, research, and conservation. As there will be other high school students from around the world attending, I will learn about some cultural differences, too.

I especially look forward to meeting the teens from Germany because I have studied German for three years.

While at Leadership Camp, I will be able to do Webcasts, blogs and post videos on YouTube.

When I return home, I hope to share what I have learned with my peers at school and other people in Pittsburgh. I hope that if people can learn about the polar bears and what can be done to save them, that we will save them from extinction --which is a very real possibility and predicted to happen sooner than people realize.