Camp turns out thinkers of deep
Although children get a vacation from school during the summer
months, that doesn’t mean they stop learning.
Every summer, Mountain and Sea Adventures holds weeklong science
day camps at the Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort. Children ages 5 to
12 learn about marine biology in a hands-on setting, and each session
has a different theme. This week is sharks and rays week.
“The favorite thing is usually the activities -- and learning that
sharks aren’t what everybody thinks they are,” said program director
Eli Garnier.
The instructors expected shark week to attract the highest
enrollment, so next week will repeat the sharks and rays theme.
But as it turns out, Garnier said, “This summer, our biggest week
was crustaceans week.”
The camp, which is held Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 3
p.m., starts each morning with a lesson. Each camper has a workbook
and participates in interactive activities with the counselors.
The students are divided into groups, which rotate throughout the
day through different hands-on stations. They experience such things
as mud-sifting, a live-touch tank and boat rides in the Back Bay.
The counselors review the information they teach to the children
by doing a daily “candy quiz.”
“At the end of the day, our last thing is asking questions from
the activities, and whoever gets it right gets a piece of candy,”
Garnier said. “It’s good for the parents, because we do it while the
parents are picking them up, so they get to see what their kids are
learning.”
Garnier added that they hire mainly college graduates as
counselors because the marine biology instruction is pretty intense.
“We have a lot of kids that come to this camp because they’re nuts
about marine biology,” he said. “We get to learn from them sometimes
also.”
Blake Altenberg, 10, of Santa Ana, said he came to the camp
because he loves to read about sharks and squids and is fascinated by
ocean life. He said his family got a flier in the mail about the camp
and it was his idea to sign up.
Garnier said many campers attend multiple weeks, and some come
back year after year.
“I’ve been here this year and last year, said Jennifer Wetton, 6,
of Newport Beach. “It’s really fun, because you get to do candy quiz,
and you get to do all sorts of cool stuff. We learn about sharks and
fish and starfish.”
The program’s mission is to educate children about biology and
ecology, while also building an awareness of the environment. On
Friday, the campers walk the beach, picking up trash as they go.
Mountain and Sea Adventures, which is based on Catalina Island,
began as a school-year program for educational field trips, Garnier
said. The summer camps started three years ago, with the day camp at
the Dunes and a Catalina Island camp, where kids stay the entire
week.
For more information on Mountain Science Adventures, call (310)
510-2695 or visit o7www.mountainandsea.org.f7
* LINDSAY SANDHAM is the news assistant. She can be reached at
(714) 966-4625 or lindsay.sandham@latimes.com.
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.