Sharks earn harbor view

Marisa O’Neil

Just when you thought it was safe in the school parking lot ... the

Sharkmobile struck.

The Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve Science Center’s

Sharkmobile paid a visit to Harbor View Elementary in Corona del Mar

on Thursday, bringing with it a couple namesake fish.

“Is a Sharkmobile something a shark drives?” 9-year-old Shanequa

Watts asked with a giggle.

No sharks drive the Sharkmobile -- a small flatbed truck fitted

with a series of small tanks -- but they do get to hitch a ride with

workers from the California Department of Fish and Game, which runs

the mobile exhibit.

Before meeting their briny buddies, students got a lesson about

their home, the Back Bay, from center employee Sarah James.

“When we put our trash in the gutter, it goes all the way to the

ocean,” she told a group of fourth-graders. “Do you want to swim in

that?”

The children gave a unanimous groan of disgust.

Sea life doesn’t like swimming in a mucky ocean either, she added.

To prove her point, James took a small group over to a model of a

coast similar to Corona del Mar. She littered it with chocolate

sprinkles for dog waste, colored sprinkles for trash, cocoa powder

for soil and a viscous fluid for oil.

Then it began to rain, courtesy of a squirt bottle. Sure enough,

everything became a big, sludgy mess in the ocean.

“That’s why whenever it rains, we should wait three days before

going into the ocean,” she said.

James prompted the students to make a list of ways to curb ocean

pollution -- don’t litter, recycle, tell parents to use biodegradable

soap if they wash their own cars.

“Join the Surfrider Foundation,” 10-year-old Shane Kelly

suggested.

Outside, the children filed up steps to the Sharkmobile’s tanks.

Sea urchins and stars, mussels and a stingray awaited them.

“It’s cold!” Shanequa gasped as she put her hand in the water,

petting a red sea star.

“This one feels like a snake,” 9-year-old Madison Reed said of

another star.

But the sea stars weren’t the real stars. Everyone wanted a

glimpse at the sharks in a larger tank at the front of the truck.

All the creatures were fine to touch, James said, except the

sharks. A special protective coat on them could rub off and make them

ill if anyone touched them.

As the class filed by two at a time, the small stingray and

two-foot-long sharks -- a leopard and gray smooth hound -- swam

contently, oblivious to the attention.

“This one’s boring,” Shanequa said, pointing at the leopard shark

as it swam circles in the tank. “So’s the stingray.”

Shane, on the other hand, named the sharks as his favorite part of

the visit.

“But it stinks you couldn’t touch them,” he lamented.

* MARISA O’NEIL covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4268 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil@latimes.com.