Do you have a tank that is already establised? If not, do you have about $200-$500 to start a tank in order to do this project? Also, if you do not already have a tank established, do you have a month to 2 months to wait for the tank to be established?
If not, I would probably just go to a public aquarium and watch some of the fish there and get your analysis off of what you see there. Saltwater is so much more complicated then just rushing to the store, buying a ten or twenty gallon tank and dumping fish in. If you do this, you will be killing species of nature and not learning anything that is valid because all of the fish will be reacting differently due to being under stress.