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Ocean Becomes Classroom
with Project Oceanology

Alex Evenchik uses a caliper to measure the shell of an Asian shore crab at Project Oceanology.

Lower School science teacher Caitlin Drechsler’s students always bring their book bags to class, but last month they toted beach pails and sleeping bags as well—that’s what happens when a beach in Groton, Connecticut is your classroom for two days.

This April, BB&N’s fifth graders traveled to Project Oceanology, a full-fledged marine science and environmental education program on the University of Connecticut campus, for an overnight trip of ocean exploration.

“The focus of the 5th grade ocean unit is understanding the abiotic factors that affect habitats, and how different organisms are adapted for these different habitats,” says Dreschler. “We addressed a few different habitats and groups of organisms over the course of the unit. At Project O, we observed the habitats and organisms that were most accessible—which in this case were crabs and plankton.” 

Split up into two days, the students spent the first day on the water aboard Project O’s 65-foot-long “Enviro-Lab II”, a refurbished coastguard boat which has been transformed into a floating science lab. Using a drag net and water collecting capsules, the students took water samples to study later, and became acquainted with numerous types of marine life pulled up in the net.

“This is our third year doing Project O, and it’s working out really well,” notes grade five teacher Jack Denny-Brown. “The kids on the boat get so immersed in what they’re doing—it’s a fun activity but it really focuses them as well.”

This year students came face-to-face with flounders, lobsters, various types of crabs, and many small fish species—but it’s one thing to touch crabs or take a plankton sample, it’s a whole other thing to understand the habitats and importance of these organisms. To that end, day two gets students off the boat and into the Project O lab for some science.

A visit to the rocky beach on the shores of Project O finds Drechsler and Denny-Brown leading half of the class on a crab hunting expedition. Students scurry from rock to rock with pails of water containing their catch.

“We are attempting to catch crabs along the shore here, Asian shore crabs, European green crabs, and native crabs,” says Drechsler. “We studied different sorts of crabs, particularly the Asian shore crabs, and students learned that they are not native to New England, and that they came to the U.S. from Asia in the mid-1800s.”

“They hopped onto ships like stowaways!” interjects Sophie Wang.

“Yesterday we studied the habitat that crabs like so we would know where to look and how to find them,” Drechsler says. “This morning we are trying to catch them, measure them, and classify them. Then we’ll see how many of each kind we catch and learn about populations.”

Their studying from the previous day has paid off; each group of students has multiple crabs after an hour or so, and they begin the process of measuring and identifying them.

“I’m going to name that one Sally and that one Tally” says Josie Fitzgerald, looking into the plastic bucket in her hand containing two crabs. Denny-Brown is tasked with convincing her that crabs do not make the best pets!

Meanwhile, the other half of the class is busy in the Project O laboratory using Leica EZ4 microscopes to examine the water samples they collected on the boat.

“Oh my gosh, there’s a giant shrimp thing eating another!” exclaims Max Wiegand. What he’s looking at is a type of plankton, one of the most important creatures in the ocean.

Project O employee Kirsten Tomlinson oversees the students as they search for plankton types and draw what they see. Once they have sketched all of the different plankton on their slides, she will help them to identify and classify their findings.

This scientific method is interesting, but it can be a lot of work, so Project O has found a way to add an element of fun to it. Students pair up and using coffee filters, yarn, feathers, glue, and other materials, build models of the plankton they discovered under the microscopes.  These giant “plankton” are then dropped from a balcony and the slowest plankton to the ground wins.

“It’s apropos to real life in a way because plankton in the ocean are ‘floaters’, they have to stay close to the surface to get enough sunlight and CO₂ to live,” says Tomlinson. “So the lighter they are the better.”

Tomlinson has been working at Project O for ten years, collaborating with school groups that visit the facility. It’s a busy job—Project O hosts students all year long with the exception of January and February, and can accommodate up to three school groups at the same time.

“We work with each school to tailor the program during their stay to match their curriculum, so students can have a firsthand experience to match what they are learning in the classroom,” says Tomlinson. And according to her, the program has been an unmitigated success. 

“Often we get kids who think science is boring, but then they get out on the boat, or they catch a crab and get to examine it in a lab…then all of sudden we hear, ‘Wow, this is fun!’”

“So yes, the actual science part is great, but that students are enjoying the science is sort of the point in a larger sense.”

For a photo gallery of the fifth grade’s Project O trip, click here.

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