COUNTYWIDE : Professor’s Plunge Gets Audience World Wide Wet

Imagine interrupting one of Jacques Cousteau’s TV narratives to ask for a better look at the kelp near his left flipper.

Novice oceanography students at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo and Tustin Ranch Elementary were able to do something like that Thursday, when professor Joe Valencic delivered a lecture from the ocean floor off the coast of Dana Point.

Through a special microphone, Valencic fielded questions about anything his underwater camera could capture. Wannabe oceanographers sat in on the discussion from their computer terminals in places as far off as Tokyo or Mexico City.

As part of a worldwide experiment called “24 Hours in Cyberspace,” Valencic fed live images and sounds from beneath the ocean through a cable television hookup to students at both schools and countless others signed on to the World Wide Web.

During the exercise, Valencic and co-coordinator Tony Huntley took questions from students who didn’t flinch from the scrutiny of the global village’s impatient online community.

Looking at a large TV projection of the ocean floor, freshman Rodney Legros asked: “The flurry of sediment floating around you down there: Would you say it’s mostly biogenous or lythogenous?,” referring to organic and nonorganic debris.

Valencic, his measured breaths coming over the classroom speaker, answered: “Most of the sediment here is lythogenous. I’d say about 25% is from actual living organisms.”

“That’s how this program can educate people from all over,” he said later.

Legros agreed. “The fact that it’s live and interactive makes you excited about learning this material,” he said.

The San Francisco-based cyberspace project was created as an extension of a popular 1980s series of books and CD-ROMs called “A Day in the Life of America.” Transmitting instantly accessible images collected from 250 locations worldwide, project coordinators sought to make computerized information more appealing.

The images were updated throughout the day, providing online users with depictions of life from places like Hong Kong and the Antarctic.

Two classes of Saddleback students remained engaged for an hour each, following the drama of Valencic’s struggle with strong sea surges. As he twirled about in the currents with arms flailing, Valencic said: “You have no idea how much I’ve been turned upside down here.”

Cesar Arellanos, a 19-year-old freshman and regular underwater diver, knew.

“Down there is one of the few places left that are not ruined by man,” he said.