Marine Institute to Expand

The Orange County Marine Institute unveiled plans Monday for its Ocean Education Center, an expansion that will serve close to double the schoolchildren the existing center does.

Officials displayed models and sketches of the proposed 32,000-square-foot Dana Point facility that Marine Institute President Stan Cummings said will enable the institute to serve about 130,000 students annually, an increase of 40%.

Although more than half of Orange County’s schoolchildren are now able to take part in a Marine Institute program, the 20-year-old institute is too small and inadequately equipped to grow with the school-age population, Cummings said.

Institute officials spent four months studying with teachers and focus groups and visiting a dozen marine science centers before they began drafting plans for the Ocean Education Center, which is designed to give students hands-on experience in marine biology, Project Manager Harry Helling said.

“As we conceived our center, we wanted to take students behind the scenes, behind the little door where [workers] actually take care of the sharks,” he said. “It gives students the opportunity to operate a coastal observatory.”

The campus-style facility will feature state-of-the-art learning equipment, Helling said.

The buildings will be made of wood, glass and concrete to resemble early marine science labs and blend in with the rest of the harbor, Helling said. The campus will be connected by boardwalks and courtyards. Students will have access to wave tanks, tide pools, videoconferencing facilities and a loft that will allow them to spend the night a stone’s throw from the ocean.

State Sen. Bill Morrow (R-Oceanside) and Assemblywoman Patricia Bates (R-Laguna Niguel) were on hand to present a $1-million state grant to help finance construction.

Cummings said he hopes to secure two-thirds of the estimated $16.5 million it will take to build the facility before construction begins next fall. The institute, which has raised $2 million so far, hopes to secure additional grant money while seeking private and corporate donations, he said.