Students take closer look at kelp

Christine Carrillo

The gaping holes and nonexistent kelp forestry along the coast have

served as a platform for educating Orange County students on ecology

since September 2001. On Thursday, Orange County CoastKeeper, the

organization conducting the kelp reforestation project that includes

student education, extended those lessons beyond the classrooms.

For the first time, middle and high school students involved in

the project culminated their educational lessons with a boat tour of

the kelp forest they helped harvest.

About 50 students spent the day on a boat moving from one teaching

station to another, learning about navigation, bird watching,

pollution and marine mammals, before visiting the site at Crystal

Cove State Park where marine biologists planted the kelp. Students

were able to follow divers underwater via live video feed, enabling

them to see their harvesting efforts flourish.

“I think it intrigues them and I know that every time they go to

the beach from now on ... they’re going to see the kelp and maybe

make a connection,” said Scott Smith, a Newport Harbor High biology

teacher who has participated in the project with his class for the

past two years. “Ecology, in general, is a pretty serious part of a

biology class and [this project] just makes the ecology much more

real. It incorporates itself very well into the curriculum.”

At the beginning of the year, CoastKeeper introduced students from

five Orange County schools, including Newport Harbor High and

Fairview Developmental Hospital, to the underwater world of kelp.

With more than 800 species dependent upon its existence, the huge

gaps and lack of kelp forests along Newport’s coastline have led to

environmental concern that inspired the students participating in the

project as well.

“I just like nature so I’m very interested in that kind of stuff,”

said 15-year-old Kelly Kaban, a ninth-grader in Smith’s biology class

at Newport Harbor. “It’s a good thing that people care about the

environment ... and I’m proud of myself. I’m proud I was able to do

something with the environment also.”

Banding together to rebuild an underwater forest, students took an

active role harvesting new kelp forests for reefs along Crystal Cove

as part of a statewide CoastKeepers’ effort.

“The idea behind our project is ... to fill in the gaps and kind

of Johnny Appleseed the whole kelp forest back into place,” said

Nancy Caruso, a marine biology with CoastKeeper who heads the

organization’s project. “The goal is to increase the reforestation of

kelp -- it is the rainforest of the sea.”

The project began when representatives from CoastKeeper talked to

students about the role of kelp and microscopic spores that they

could harvest in the classroom’s kelp nursery. Three months later,

their spores grew about a half inch, a minuscule height when compared

to the 30 feet they reached when the students saw them Thursday.

“I see a definite advantage for [the students] being involved in

this project because they don’t really have a chance to see kelp ...

and a lot of kids don’t really have any idea that this ecosystem even

exists,” Caruso said. “It really does raise their awareness. It just

opens up a whole new world of learning.”