A Video Voyage to the Ocean Floor : Program Links Students, Scientists at Work

Sometimes, a picture in a science textbook is not enough.

Certainly not when it’s compared to an electronic field trip to an ocean bed where coral glimmers, sea lions frolic and schools of fish shimmy along the sand.

With the help of three giant television monitors and satellite link-ups, nearly 800 Orange County children gathered at UC Irvine’s Beckman Center on Monday to embark on a video adventure to the Galapagos Islands.

Students in grades 4 to 12 followed tour guide Robert Ballard--the oceanographer who discovered the ruins of the Titanic--via satellite as he and fellow scientists explored the islands where Charles Darwin conducted his research in natural selection in 1835. The trip was intermixed with live and taped interviews, while teachers sprinkled in some history and science lessons.

The video field trip was part of the Jason Project, a nationwide program created three years ago to increase students’ interest in sciences. It is named after the Greek mythological hero Jason, whose search for the Golden Fleece led him and the Argonauts across the Black Sea.

On this occasion, the goal to increase interest in science worked. For those children who yearn to explore the ocean and exotic lands, the trip sparked hope for the future.

“I want to be a marine biologist,” declared 13-year-old Whitney Gilliam, an eighth-grader at TeWinkle Intermediate School in Costa Mesa. “There were so many animals under the water. It was amazing and very beautiful.”

The Orange County Marine Institute sponsored the broadcast, the first of its kind on the West Coast. For the next two weeks, half a million students throughout the country will take part in the 90-minute trips to the Galapagos Islands until the expedition is over. Nearly 15,000 Orange County children will participate.

The field trip, coupled with a science curriculum prepared by the National Science Teachers Assn., allows students to observe scientists at work with high technology.

“When I was growing up, scientists were popular heroes. They were revered and there was an excitement to the field,” said Stanley L. Cummings, executive director of the Marine Institute. “Nowadays, scientists are seen as nerds. This program brings science back to the forefront. It captures the excitement again.”

Monday’s “visit” to the Galapagos Islands, off the shores of Ecuador, provided the students with an unprecedented up-close and personal look into what is considered a scientist’s paradise. Isolated by ocean, the islands are home to a menagerie of animals that have made unique adaptations to their environment: fish that garden, birds that don’t fly and turtles that don’t eat for weeks.

The children got to see those natural wonders via video rides aboard miniature robots, which whisked them underwater and plunged behind coral.

During a live hook-up, sea lions scampered past the remote cameras and played with the wires that carried the television signals. The fascinated students also saw Damsel fish, a species that collects algae and “gardens” it in an area that it fiercely protects from other hungry fish. And the scientists introduced the children to the island’s giant turtles and land iguanas, which were nearly killed off by human encroachment.

“This teaches students that so many animals and plant species are in jeopardy,” said Annea Massimino, a teacher at TeWinkle. “Hopefully they will realize how precious and delicate the environment is.”

Eighth-grader Manuel Lizama, 13, raved about the birds shown in the telecast.

“I saw all the birds and what they look like,” Manuel said. “They are all different.”

Teacher Nancy Marcus, who instructs TeWinkle students in English as a second language, said the science program gives students who would otherwise have been restricted to imagining such expeditions through books and pre-taped videos a real chance to be explorers.

“You don’t have the feeling of being underwater in a textbook,” Marcus said. “Today, the children were part of the expedition and swimming underwater. Students can look at a picture and say, ‘That’s good.’ But looking at these monitors and seeing the scientists at work is better. This is an entirely new world for them.”