Students all ears for Rabbit Island summer classes

Orange Coast College will offer four science-themed credit courses this summer and a noncredit photography workshop at its beautiful Rabbit Island facility in British Columbia.

Located 50 miles north of the city of Vancouver at the top of the Strait of Georgia, Rabbit Island was donated to OCC in 2003 by Southern California yachtsman Henry Wheeler of Downey. This summer’s schedule marks the third year in a row that classes have been offered at the facility.

Rabbit Island is home to Orange Coast’s Wheeler Research Station. The heavily wooded 40-acre isle rests in a beautiful archipelago. An abundance of narrow passages, beaches and coves, teeming with marine life, encompasses the area.

Credit classes that will be offered this summer include Field Archaeology (Anthropology 282); Rabbit Island Biodiversity Survey 2006 (Biology 291AD); Independent Study on the Natural History of Vertebrates (Biology 292AD); and Island Ecology (Ecology 110). The workshop is titled Rabbit Island Photo Adventure.

The three-unit Field Archeology class introduces students to strategies and techniques required for the archeological excavation of a prehistoric site. The class meets at the island Sunday through Friday, June 25 to 30.

Students enrolled in the one-unit Rabbit Island Biodiversity Survey 2006 course will design and conduct a biological survey of the island. The class meets Sunday through Friday, June 5 to 9, at the island.

The two-unit Independent Study on the Natural History of Vertebrates will compare the phylogeny, life history, behavior and ecology of Southern California vertebrates with those found on and around Rabbit Island. Students will meet on the island Sunday through Friday, July 2 to 7.

The three-unit Island Ecology class will explore the marine intertidal environment of the Rabbit Island archipelago. Course instructor Dennis Kelly taught an ecology class at the island the past two summers. The marine science professor was named OCC’s faculty member of the year last year.

The Island Ecology class meets at Rabbit Island Sunday through Friday, Aug. 6 to 11.

The noncredit photo workshop will be led by award-winning outdoor photographer Don Gale. The class meets at the island Sunday through Friday, Aug. 20 to 25.

OCC’s Wheeler Research Station consists of four large water-view cabins, a cozy lodge and outbuildings. Resting under trees and on top of rock outcroppings, the cabins and lodge are connected by wooden walkways. The island has its own power-generating station, utilizing diesel, solar and wind generation. A desalinization system provides fresh water.

For information about the summer Rabbit Island classes, call (714) 432-5993.

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OCC hosted its third annual Tuskegee Airmen tribute luncheon Friday.

A dozen members of the Los Angeles chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen Inc. were on hand for Friday’s luncheon. The program included speakers, video clips and the awarding of the first OCC Tuskegee Airmen Scholarship to an aviation student. An airman who now lives in Orange County spoke, as did a bomber pilot who was escorted by the airmen in World War II.

The Tuskegee Airmen were dedicated and determined young black men who enlisted in the military during World War II to become America’s first African American military airmen. They trained at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Tuskegee, Ala., and served their country with distinction.

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The condition of Orange County’s coastal dolphin population will be discussed on Thursday evening, Feb. 16, during the third program being hosted this academic year by the Friends of Orange Coast College’s Library.

The session features OCC marine biology professor Dennis Kelly. Kelly has spent his entire professional career studying marine life, most of it in local waters. His specialty is dolphins.

Titled “Warm Blood, Cold Sea: What Dolphins Have Taught Me,” the program begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Lido Isle Women’s Club. The club is located at 701 Via Lido Soud on Lido Isle. The lecture is open to the public.

Admission is $5 for nonmembers. Seating is limited. Reservations may be made by calling (714) 432-5087. Refreshments will be served.

Kelly is director of the Coastal Dolphin Research Project. During the past 23 years -- with help from his OCC students -- Kelly has studied and documented the condition of Orange County’s bottlenose-dolphin population.

A native Southern Californian, he holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology from Cal State Fullerton. Kelly has studied at Scripps Institute in San Diego and at a marine facility in Massachusetts. Last year, he was named OCC’s faculty member of the year.

* JIM CARNETT is senior director of community relations at Orange Coast College. He writes the biweekly On Campus at OCC Column. Reach him at jcarnettocc.cccd.edu or by calling (714) 432-5725.

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