Coastkeeper’s education program W.H.A.L.E.S brought students from Troy High School to Heisler Park in Laguna Beach to spend the day learning about Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and biodiversity in tide pools along Orange County’s coastline. Our students also eagerly lent helping hands to perform a cleanup along Main Beach.
Student Service Learning
The morning began with an introduction to Laguna’s MPA’s by Marine Protection Officer Jeremy Frimond followed by service learning project.
During their beach cleanup, students stopped fishing line, plastic water bottles, a brick, a large piece of carpet and countless other pieces of litter from reaching the ocean.
Tide Pool Scavenger Hunt
After lunch students spent the rest of the day the exploring the tide pools with Laguna Beach Tide Pool Educator, Amy Penso. During their low tide exploration, students saw many different types of creatures including; shore crabs, hermit crabs, wavy top turban snails, tube worms, sea anemones, buckshot and gooseneck barnacles, limpets, mossy chiton, juvenile ghost shrimp and red Christmas tree worms.
In the tide pools, students observed juvenile opal eye, perch, zebra perch and sculpin fish. Just off the side of the tide pools, underneath the cleft of a rock formation, students were able to peek at a male Garibaldi defending his egg nesting site.
To see more photos of this field excursion please visit our Facebook page!
