News | Monterey Bay Academy

MBA Students Sail for Science

Friday, February 29, 2008

A group of 30 students, teachers and parents from Monterey Bay Academy and Loma Linda Academy took to the high seas on February 18 to 20. They sailed on a tall ship from Long Beach, Calif. to Catalina Island to learn about sailing and marine biology.

“This trip was amazing,” trip coordinator and MBA natural sciences teacher Bob Nobuhara says. “The principles of science and math were involved in everything we did, from learning navigation to the physics of sailing to our daily classes in marine biology. This trip took our students and immersed them in the theories and concepts we study in class every day.”

Although the cruise was just three days long, Nobuhara’s group of 15 students and four parents didn’t have a lot of downtime. While the main purpose of the trip was to study marine life firsthand, the trip participants also served as the working crew of the ship, learning the names and functions of the sails that filled the ship’s three masts and how the web of ropes and cables came together to serve as the ship’s rigging.

“We did a lot of work with the rigging and learned a lot about the sails,” Francisco Grant, a junior from Brooklyn, New York, says. “We even got the chance to climb the rigging to the top of the main mast when we were anchored at Catalina Island. It was pretty cool to see the ship from 78 feet up.”

While getting used to the hard work and cramped quarters of a sailor was a major adjustment for the students, the experiences gained seem to completely outweigh any hardships they faced. The boat, which is operated by the Catalina Island Marine Institute’s Tall Ships program, is staffed with a crew of educated instructors, who all have degrees in biology or marine biology. While under sail they kept the students busy studying things like fish, marine mammals and algae or different aspects of sailing.

“We were always doing something,” Marcus Peterson, a junior from Big Pine, Calif. says. “We studied navigation and learned how to read nautical maps. We collected plankton and other things and studied them right there on the deck of the ship. It was pretty sweet.”

Even though the trip featured everything from sailing to snorkeling to kayaking, one experience does seem to stand out for all of the trip’s participants. One evening the ship came across a huge pod of dolphins, several thousand strong. The dolphins completely surrounded the ship and seemed to make the entire sea come to life with their playful antics and graceful movements.

“It was so cool. There were dolphins as far as you could see, all the way to the horizon,” Victoria Neal, a junior from Lodi, Calif. says. “They were jumping and swimming in the ship’s wake and you could hear them making sounds like clicking back and forth to each other. It was really amazing.”

Now that the group is back at MBA and sharing their experiences with other students on campus there is already a lot of interest in going on the same trip again next year, according to Nobuhara.

“This trip is a total hands-on experience for these students and it really makes them aware of the world of marine biology,” Nobuhara says. “We’ve already made plans to increase the trip from three days to five days for next year. This kind of trip is so valuable for our students and it’s incredible to see their faces light up when they’re excited about learning. I can’t wait for next year.”

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MBA Students Sail for Science