IN THE CLASSROOM:

This was so much better a classroom, said Christine McGee, visiting from Washington, D.C.

As she and her husband, Chris, enjoyed the cool sand between their toes at Crystal Cove State Beach recently, they couldn’t help but notice the 120 or so teenagers occupying it.

“This is exactly what schools should be doing,” she said.

The Newport Harbor High School freshmen spent a day at the beach — their classroom for the day.

The kids studied under the scenario that they had traveled back from the year 5007. They had three to four hours to study everything about the beach there – the rocks and sand, seaweed, artifacts, homes — and then create a booklet about it to take back to the “future.”

“It’s peaceful. You’re not sitting at a desk listening to a teacher. It’s open, like an individual thing,” said freshman Mimi Gibson.

She and about two dozen classmates sifted through the sand and inspected the heavy, jagged rocks of a cliff for clues to the area’s erosion.

Later, they compared the sand with that from beaches in Hawaii and the Caribbean that science teacher Conrad Gibson provided.

“This is awesome,” said art teacher Janine McKeon. “Some of the students that seem to be a little bit goofy in class here seem to be engaged.”

McKeon had just began with one of her five rotating groups of students for the day.

At her station, students had to sketch the old-fashioned homes that dot the coast of Crystal Cove. They learned about detailing texture, perspective and art history.

“It’s great. The kids are great,” said English teacher Jason Mintzer. “The students sit and go off and do their thing.”

Mintzer’s lesson for the day was personification. Make that old, wind-and-sand-damaged home with the peeling shingles into a person with crow’s feet and gray hair, he said.

Even the seaweed and Native American artifacts weren’t spared from the time travelers’ inquisitive eyes. Scott Smith provided some hands-on examples of seaweed for the kids to study — which repulsed some of them — and history teacher Joe Robinson explained the native people who once called Crystal Cove home.

“Ask these kids four years from now what they remember from freshman year,” Robinson said.

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at joseph.serna@latimes.com.