ON BREAK:Marine life under the microscope

NEWPORT BEACH ? Jeff Nelsen’s Ocean Adventures class is a much less grisly affair this summer than it was a year ago.

Last July, the instructor planned to have his students examine sea urchins under the microscope to get a close-up look at marine biology. Unfortunately, Nelsen placed the urchins in a tank with the class’ pet lobster ? ironically named Lucky ? and found a few half-eaten fragments of them in the water the next day.

For this go-round, then, Nelsen has found a way to outsmart the lobster. When he puts urchins in the tank, he conceals them under rocks.

As a result, last Wednesday, the dozen children in the class got to deal with whole specimens.

“They move slowly, but they move,” said Erica Garbutt, 7, as she poked a spiny purple urchin with her finger. “They’re not as prickly as I thought they were.”

For six weeks at Harbor Day School, elementary-age students get a varied view of the ocean world, spending the morning in the classroom and venturing to the beach after lunch.

On Wednesday morning, the children moved from one station to another, peering at urchins, making crystals and learning the physics of scuba-diving.

Nelsen, who teaches at Harbor Day during the school year, started the Ocean Adventures class 30 years ago. Over time, it’s become such a family institution that his son, Erik, serves as an assistant instructor.

The younger Nelsen, who operates surf camps for Quiksilver, finds that his knowledge helps to make the morning lessons come alive.

“They get some education, some instruction in the morning, and then the kids can take what they learned in the program and apply it to hands-on stuff in the afternoon,” Erik Nelsen said.

One of the projects the students have done in class ? popularly referred to as “divers” ? is a precursor of sorts to scuba-diving. Participants fill eye-droppers with water, then float them in tall beakers of water. If the droppers have more water than air, they will sink to the bottom when nudged with a finger.

The same principles, Jeff Nelsen explained, keep human divers near the ocean floor.

At another station, students mix water, blue coloring and aluminum potassium sulfate in petri dishes, then leave the mixture overnight to harden into crystals.

Bridget Donnelly, a student at Waldorf School of Orange County, said the class was a welcome break from her usual arts curriculum.

“At my school, I don’t do much science,” said Bridget, 8. “But I do a lot of drawing.”dpt.25-break-CPhotoInfo741T8N4L20060725j2xkncncCredit: CHRISTOPHER WAGNER / DAILY PILOT Caption: (LA)Jeff Peters teaches Johnny King, 6, Jonathan Chance, 6, and Bridget Donnelly, 8, (from left) how to use a microscope to view plankton at Jeff Nelsen’s Ocean Adventures class at Harbor Day School in Newport Beach on Wednesday.