Schools

MRH Eighth-Graders Learn About Marine Ecology and History in Alabama Trip

The Maplewood Richmond Heights Middle School students will return Thursday.

Dozens of St. Louis area eighth-graders have been exploring marine life and history along the Gulf Coast as part of a capstone trip.

"We're just having a really good time out here," said Tresten Pinnell, an eighth-grader at . He said the most interesting thing he had done as of early Tuesday afternoon was going out to sea in a research vessel to learn how Hurricane Katrina transformed the region. Also memorable: Tracking through "really stinky, deep mud" on a visit to a salt marsh.

Megan Hanak, another eighth-grader, agreed that the most interesting thing she had seen so far was the boat ride, noting that many people don't get to do something like that. She said she is hoping to learn more about marine biology, a field she hopes to enter one day.

Principal Bob Dillon said 69 students from the school and 17 adults are visiting various sites around Mobile, AL, as part of the journey.

"This is an unbelievably worthwhile experience for us," Dillon said.

The group drove to Alabama on Sunday and will return Thursday. From Monday through Wednesday, the students will spend 12-hour days learning about the area in a variety of exercises.

On Monday, the students hopped aboard the Alabama Discovery, a research vessel, to learn about more than a dozen species of wildlife and to talk about the ecology of the area, Dillon said. The school is working in conjunction with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, which has deployed coordinators to travel with the group.

The students participated in a plankton lab in which they collected water samples from the beach and looked at them under a microscope. They also visited a salt marsh, using nets to get a closer look at specimens such as baby turtles, crabs and shrimp.

In the evening, the students dissected a squid, reviewed math concepts and took an hourlong swim in the ocean. About 50 percent of the students hadn't seen the ocean until this trip, Dillon said.

On Tuesday, topics were to include coastal oceanography, the Sea Lab's Estuarium and a Civil War site called Fort Gaines.

"The kids have been outstanding," Dillon said.


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