Students dive into marine ecosystem lesson

A La Conner High School student group was to have taken a science field trip to the beach last Tuesday on what would have been a perfect warm and sunny outing.

But, as has been the case for more than a year, COVID-19 protocols forced a change in plans.

Thankfully, due to the adaptability of La Conner school district and the Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve staffs, students in the Between Two Worlds Indigenous Science class could still enjoy the beach life.

Padilla Bay’s Annie English and Madi McKay brought forage fish eggs to the La Conner classroom for students to view through microscopes – either in-person or virtually – for them to record data related to an integral part of the Pacific Northwest marine food web.

“They’re really important,” English said of forage fish such as surf smelt, Pacific herring and Pacific sand lance. “They are a vital link. The sand lance is 80% of the Chinook salmon diet and Chinook salmon are 80% of the adult orca whale diet.”

The La Conner students studied preserved eggs collected at low tide from Fidalgo Bay in late April. The microscopes allowed them to recognize various embryological stages.

“The eggs are super small,” English said. “It’s really hard to see them with the naked eye.”

The original plan was for the teens to do their work in the field – or, rather, at the shoreline – as part of “Kids on the Beach,” a project supported by a handful of environmental and corporate partners.

“This program’s mission,” said England, an educator at the Reserve, in Bay View, “is to get kids on the beach and doing science. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, we weren’t able to get the kids on the beach (this year), but we’ve been able to bring the beach to the students.”

England has worked in concert with Skagit County public school teachers, including Jennifer Willup, lead instructor of La Conner High School’s Between Two Worlds program, which connects modern science with traditional cultural values.

The class began in 2019 as an afterschool enrichment opportunity and this year was added to the daily schedule. COVID-19, which forced distance learning fall semester, modified how Willup presented material.

“It’s almost been like a second pilot year,” she said.

A third generation educator and La Conner alum, Willup told the Weekly News that the next step for her students on their present assignment is to chart the forage fish data.

“They’ll do graphing exercises,” she said, “essentially producing an Excel sheet and that way they can see when the eggs were spawned and tie it back to habitat.”

The eggs were variously collected from a natural beach, a re-armored beach and three beaches in which fish habitat was enhanced, Willup and England said.

McKay led the initial 45-minute microscope activity for those students who logged in remotely.

English, who majored in Studio Art and Environmental Policy while at Western Washington University, said the graphing component is a key part of the lesson.

“Graphs are an important tool to communicate science,” she told the students. “Graphs are a way to breathe life into data and present data in a way that people can understand.”

Each student has also been assigned to write a paragraph explaining what specific information their graphs are communicating.

In addition, the forage fish study has increased student familiarity with three vital vocabulary terms: biodiversity, habitat and ecosystem.

The most emphasized word, though, has been “fun.” Especially as students have focused on and recognized embryonic shapes under their microscopes.

“It’s pretty fun,” England agreed, “when you can see a fish inside the egg.”