Hi there! I'm Alisha, and I'm in the 7 th grade.

There are many things that I enjoy. I love to play sports. Basketball, softball, and cross country are probably my favorite. I also love to swim. I enjoy reading and writing poetry. I like for my poems to rhyme, and sometimes that can be a challenge! I also like to read in general. My two all-time favorite books are Little Women , by Louisa May Alcott, and The Diary of Anne Frank . I also have a love for acting. Since 3 rd grade I have participated in Destination Imagination. It's a competition where you get to act and problem solve. It is a fun activity, and it has taught me to think outside the box, or come up with solutions that I wouldn't have thought of before. I am a peer mediator at my school. I really like doing this because it gives me a chance to help fellow students resolve their issues with people that they have gotten into a fight with, or are mad at. Cooking has recently become one of my favorite activities. I experiment with new recipes, and it makes me feel really good when my family enjoys what I made. I feel like I've really accomplished something when I master a new and complicated recipe.

Helping develop this website has been a great learning experience. My part in this whole project was mostly researching and writing on different topics. I also helped make some of the games and did some of the graphics. I would like to thank my dad for educating us about the plight of coral reefs. This information helped us pick this as a topic for our website. By researching coral reefs, I have become aware that the world's oceans are endangered because of the way people currently treat the environment. I realize that we are all responsible for cleaning up our oceans if we want our planet to thrive. It's our generation that is responsible for the future of the planet.

I would like to thank Dylan for introducing us to ThinkQuest. A big thank you to the team for pulling through and making this site the best we could. I would also like to thank all the coaches for their feedback. Last but not least, I would like to thank my mom for her support and encouragements.

Hello! My name is Benjamin, but most people just call me Benji.

I am nine years old. I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I lived with my family for approximately one year. After that, my family moved to the city of Manila in the  Philippines , where we stayed for almost three years before moving to Europe . Currently, I live in Hamburg , Germany , just next to River Elbe (where the huge container ships pass by coming/going from/to the Hamburg Port and opposite Airbus Industries where they build parts for the Airbus airplanes and where the Beluga Transporter (Cargo Planes) lands and takes off to bring the assembled parts for final assembly.). I live with my parents and my little sister, Liv Johanna, who is seven years old. I am in one year of high school, visiting a Humanistic/Classical High School where they teach Latin, Greek, and humanistic values.

As an individual, I am interested in all sorts of things. I love playing the piano. I like a lot of sports: skiing, which I do plenty of in the winter; soccer; and field hockey. One of my favorite pastimes is jumping on my trampoline in the garden with all my friends (among a few other things, I learnt that this is something I have in common with Dylan!). On the weekends, I love to read, play sports, and, more importantly, spend special time with my grandfather who has a lot of remote controlled airplanes and miniature trains. Well, to sum it up, I am very curious and I am interested in technical things; I have an open to mind to all sorts of technical things. My role in this project was research and writing. I truly enjoyed learning about coral reefs and sharing my knowledge by writing with children from all parts of the world.  I would like to thank both the coaches for their hard work. That was why I enjoyed working on this special project-- working with children from different countries was fascinating! I enjoyed working with all of them.

Hi! My name is Courtney and I am nine and a half years old.

I was extremely excited when my cousin, Dylan, asked me to participate on this project.  I was so excited because I love to draw and think that it's my best strength.  My job included research and illustrations for the Coral Crisis website.

Other things that interest me are science experiments and anything to do with ancient Egypt .  I hope to become an Egyptologist when I get older.  I've been taking Irish step classes for two years.  My two favorite sports to play are soccer and basketball.  I also like to play with my two year old baby sister. Another thing I love is to collect things.  I have three special collections. The first one is collectable spoons, the second is porcelain masks, and the third is rocks that catch my interest.

 I'd like to thank my cousin, Dylan, for involving me.  I'd like to also thank our entire group for helping make our Website possible.  I'd like to give special thanks to Ragho, my step-dad and assistant coach, Ms. Monica Cataldo, our primary coach, Krithi, my aunt, for helping me with the computer scanning of my artwork, and Kierstin, my mom, for helping me with my research. I hope you learned a lot from our Website and had fun while learning!

Hello! My name is Dylan and I am in 5 th grade.

Since you're here, I assume you're a bit curious about all of us who worked on this project. Here's the low-down on me:

It is very difficult to list my interests as there aren't too many things that interest me at least a bit. I love tennis and swimming. I also love music; I play the piano, trumpet, guitar, traditional drums, a hand-crafted, goblet shaped African drum called Djembe, and a double-headed, barrel-shaped Indian drum called Mrdanga. I play trumpet for my school band and I am also a member of the school chorus. My favorite color is green, and my favorite song is “Boulevard of Broken Dream” by Green Day. I love biking, roller-blading, and jumping on the trampoline with my friends. I love building robots, making and testing paper airplanes, performing magic tricks, solving Sudoko puzzles, and origami. Oh, before I forget, I also like to play video and computer games. Last but not least, I am concerned about public health and improving quality of life worldwide; with this in mind I have pursued several activities to promote awareness of and help alleviate global issues.

Regarding this project, it was one of the best experiences of my life! My part in the project mostly involved research and writing. I also came up with concepts for a few of the FUN pages on our website and worked on a few graphics. I thoroughly enjoyed working with this team. This is my first experience working with international team members on an out-of-school project. It was a big challenge, but a great learning experience. I would like to thank my cousin Courtney and my friends Alisha, Nikhyl, Sheila, and Benji for all their work and time. I also want to thank Ms. Monica Cataldo (our primary coach), Mr. Ragho Mahalingam (our assistant coach, who happens to be my uncle), Mr. Thomas Poliseno (school principal), Mr. John Moody (our town public school superintendent), Mrs. Mary Noonan (my 5 th grade teacher), and my family and friends for all their support and encouragement. Thank you, everyone; we could not have made this without you!

Hi I am Nikhyl, I am ten years old and in the fourth grade.

I would like to tell you about myself. I love to play football. I think it is a fun and exciting game. My favorite football team is the New England Patriots. I like to read, play board games, write stories, and amaze my friends and family with card tricks. I also like to play video games. The comic strip Calvin and Hobbes always makes me smile. My favorite books are The Hobbit and the Warriors series which is about cat clans. I have been playing the violin for two years. I also belong to a chess club and play chess with my friends.

I liked working on this project. The intricate balance of nature found in coral reefs really interested me. I hope that a lot of people will read the information on our Website and will try to make a difference to help our coral reefs.

I want to thank our whole team for all their hard work. And I want to thank my Mom and Dad for helping me figure things out. Also I want to thank all the coaches for their help.

Hello, I am Sheila.

Here is some information on me, most likely more than you ever wanted to know! I am 12 years old. I am currently in eighth standard.

I like computers, gardening, reading, drawing, Bharathanatyam (an Indian classical dance form), and playing veena (an Indian carnatic music string instrument which is 1.5m long made out of jackwood) the most. Most of the time I am on my computer, I am trying to experiment with graphics and new web page layouts. Working on the computer has become sort of an addiction for me, I think. I have always loved art. Before I owned a computer, I was always drawing or painting on paper. My favorite drawing media is India ink. Sometimes, I also use colored pencils and oil pastels. There is something about computer graphics that appeals to me a lot – the UNDO command, I simply love it! I spend a lot of time gardening as a family activity. As far as reading, I can read just about any book. I seem to enjoy animating with Flash more and more each year. I love Disney cartoons; when I watch The Little Mermaid , I am fascinated with the story on one hand and awed by the gorgeous artwork. Such artwork inspires me to try new things with graphic softwares. Finally, my responsibility in this project was mostly web designing and graphics although I did a lot of research and some content writing to maximize what I could get out of this adventure. I thoroughly enjoyed the project.