Students from John Adams Middle School in Santa Monica, first-place winners in their age group, build a sand sea turtle in Baja California with children from Todos Santos. Third from left is Dylan Braun, fifth from left is Joanna Martin and far right is Nora Hedgecock.
|
Ocean Adventure
USC Wrigley's QuikScience Challenge Rewards Learning
By Pamela J. Johnson
When 15-year-old Scott Friedlander queried the fifth-grade class about
salinity, he didn’t expect a sea of arms to shoot into the air. He
hadn’t counted on the ocean-savvy boy in the front row to rattle off
the correct answer.
“It really threw me,” Scott recounted. “I had a whole speech ready.”
Scott was part of the high school team that won first place in this
year’s QuikScience Challenge. A brainchild of the USC Wrigley Institute
for Environmental Studies and Quiksilver, Inc., a surfwear company
based in Huntington Beach, the annual contest is meant to get middle
and high school students fired up about science and the environment.
Students from five Southern California counties competed in the
Challenge, which requires teams to audit their grade level’s ocean
science curriculum and develop a lesson plan based on the findings.
They also must perform community service and create an artistic
presentation of their efforts.
Winners in both age groups spent a week in Baja California, traveling
to Cabo San Lucas, La Paz and Todos Santos, and cruising aboard
Quiksilver’s 72-foot Indies Trader.
“Not all that many students asked to be in the contest,” said Brigitte
Steinmetz, a USC alumna and science teacher at Santa Monica’s John
Adams Middle School. She mentored the younger team that placed first.
“But once everyone heard we won and got to spend a week in Mexico,
swimming with whale sharks, watching nesting sea turtles and
snorkeling, I suddenly had a drove of students asking me, ‘Can I be on
the team next year?’ I don’t think people believed we would actually
win.”
For the public service portion, Scott and five of his classmates at
Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach visited neighboring Pacific
Elementary School. In addition to discussing salinity, the six students
talked about pollution and sea animals.
“This is Terrence the Turtle,” Robbie McCracken, 15, said to the group.
A videotape showed him waving in one hand a preserved sea turtle and in
the other a plastic grocery bag. “Terrence has had a rough life. He ate
three plastic bags thinking they were jellyfish. Well, Terrence
couldn’t digest this. And thinking he was always full, he starved
himself to death.”
Later, at Roundhouse Aquarium on the Manhattan Beach pier, some of the
Mira Costa winners explained to a visitor why they entered the
competition. The aquarium’s Christine Buckius and Cali Turner acted as
their mentors.
“We all had a passion for the ocean,” said Matt Richards, 18, who began
attending USC this fall. “This was a chance to explore the ocean even
more. And a chance to go for a really great prize: Cabo.”
“For personal growth,’’ said Ashley Okada, 18, who is attending UC
Santa Cruz. “We developed knowledge about the ocean. Then as
volunteers, we got to reach out and share our knowledge.’’
During their trip, Steinmetz’s group of seventh-graders enjoyed
swimming with a 40-foot whale shark. But they were disturbed to see
that a steel rod had pierced the creature’s thick grey skin. Even
worse, when it was removed, it appeared that the rod had been
sharpened.
“They were so saddened that someone would do that,” said Steinmetz of
the group, which included Nora Hedgecock, daughter of USC’s Dennis
Hedgecock, a professor of biological sciences.
Steinmetz’s students are continuing their service project, making beach
cleanups a monthly routine. After spending time with Mexican students
in Baja, they’re also working to create an exchange program. One of
Steinmetz’s students, Dylan Braun, said he now wants to become a marine
scientist.
That’s exactly the point, said Judy Lemus, Wrigley’s director of
education: “The more they learn, the more they’ll want to protect the
ocean.”
Second-place winners, Animo Leadership Charter High School in Inglewood
and St. Mary’s Middle School in Fullerton, spent a weekend at Wrigley’s
marine lab in Catalina. Registration for this year’s contest begins in
October and is open to students throughout the state.
|
|
|
