Ocean Shore students turn sights to other ocean

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PACIFICA TRIBUNE MARINSCOPE COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER THE WEEK OF May 30, 2023. By April Seager

    •  May 30, 2023

Oceans Week at Ocean Shore Elementary

Ocean Shore Elementary School students get a good position to view pieces of tie-dye fabric that represent the Northern Lights as part of their Oceans Week experience. Photo courtesy Grace Kavanaugh

Parent-volunteer Jesse Patterson helped students from Ocean Shore School build stone sculptures called inuksuit at Linda Mar Beach in Pacifica recently as part of the school’s annual Oceans Week. Made by stacking flat stones, inuksuit are used by Indigenous peoples in the Arctic region of North America to demarcate important locations such as travel routes, hunting grounds, fishing spots and food stockpiles. Inuksuit can also serve as places of veneration.

“Do you see the stick standing up with a ring of rocks around it?” said Patterson. “One of the girls was just building it by herself and I asked her, ‘What are you doing?’ She said, ‘I’m building a tribute to my grandfather who died last year.’”

Throughout Oceans Week, rotating groups of Ocean Shore students visited Linda Mar Beach to participate in various activities that, like inuksuit, were aligned with this year’s theme, “Polar Seas.” Kids played cooperative games to learn about mushing, or dog sledding, and the marine food chain. They also gained experience identifying organic and inorganic sources of pollution during a mini beach cleanup.

“We like to come to the beach to give students this experience so that we can influence them to become stewards of our ocean for future generations,” said Michelle Zuromski, a first-grade teacher at Ocean Shore, who was one of the beach field trip chaperones. “The big message is that everything that we do here in our city and on our beach affects not only the ocean here, but it affects the oceans of the world because they’re all connected.”

Meanwhile, back on the Ocean Shore campus, parent-volunteer Grace Kavanaugh offered a tour of several hallways that had been exuberantly decorated with student artwork in celebration of Oceans Week. Preparations started in late April, said Kavanaugh, and culminated in an open house for parents last Thursday.

The polar seas-themed wonderland at Ocean Shore featured student handiwork, including 3-D busts of arctic wolves, a distinguished papier-mâché albatross suspended from the ceiling and Snowflake, a polar bear painted on paper that stretched about 9 feet up the wall. In one hallway, DIY narwhal heads with long protruding tusks rested on top of a cubby hole shelf, bobbing in ocean waves that had been created with a deep blue LED rope light hanging on the wall.

The displays were just as educational as they were artistic. Explorers like Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton and Roald Amundsen got several shout-outs complete with bios and expedition maps. One wall featured a row of life-size paper penguins, showing all the various species from the tallest, the emperor penguin, to the shortest, the little penguin.

“The art turns into this magical, immersive learning experience for the kids and makes everything really accessible to all of them,” said Kavanaugh.

During Oceans Week, teachers gave a series of themed lessons. Virginia Szczepaniak used a role-play activity to show a group of sixth-graders how auroral light is emitted by magnetospheric electrons colliding with oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. Szczepaniak was one of the teachers who helped launch Oceans Week at Ocean Shore School in 1989.

“Now instead of me writing and delivering the program, it’s the whole staff that produces the program,” said Szczepaniak, adding that lesson plans are updated each year to reflect new scientific discoveries and changes in the environment.

“It’s amazing how the entire school comes together every year,” said Kavanaugh. “And each year it’s all completely different. Definitely the best part of Ocean Shore.” 

Download/View the original article: PacificaTribune

Art installation brightens beach, informs visitors

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PACIFICA TRIBUNE MARINSCOPE COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER  December 27th

By Jenna Hards, staff writer

Art-filled pole at Linda Mar Beach

Informative signs point the way to an art-filled pole at Linda Mar Beach. Anna Hoch-Kenney / Tribune

The efforts of a retired school teacher, 100 school children, and other local Pacifica artists and volunteers have come together after five years of planning, researching and painting. The results can be seen on three 8-foot-tall wooden poles covered in art and located at the different entrances to the Pacifica State Beach.

Sheila Gamble Dorn, Pacifica resident and retired third-grade teacher, partnered with Julie Stock, another local teacher and artist. Together they came up with the original idea of the Beach Poles. These poles would be covered in children’s art depicting local flora and fauna in an effort to teach beachgoers about the species living on the beach and surrounding creek.

“We care about the ocean. We want the students to care about the ocean,” Gamble said as she stood in front of one of the poles.

Each pole features a different wildlife group. One covers oceanic species that call Pacifica home, another focuses on creek wildlife, and a third covers the snowy plovers that lay their eggs in the sand on the state beach and are on the environmental watch list.

Gamble explained that the idea came after “a neighbor witnessed a young child throw a rock at a gull on the beach and break the gull’s wing,” she said. She wanted to bring awareness to environmental and wildlife conservation. She brought her ideas to Stock.

“I always was sketching. I always have my sketchbook because I just kind of think of the ideas visually, and I sketched it out and then (Dorn) listened. And then she brought them out to the Coastal Commission,” explained Stock.

With help from the Charles A. Becker Foundation Oceans 411 grant, the project could finally get underway.

After the approval was granted, Gamble reached

out to former students during the pandemic and nearly 100 kids came to her studio to pick up art kits and work on their signs. The children were able to choose what animal or plant they wanted to paint and also wrote facts about each on their wooden board. The poles were donated and the wood is almost 100 years old.

“When they put the poles in, the graffiti started,” Gamble said. She realized they had to get the children’s work up fast. Gamble pointed out that as soon as the children’s artwork went up, the graffiti immediately stopped.

The final steps of these informational art pieces included a custom mosaic at the bottom, done by local artist April Uhland and steel and ceramic statues designed by Stock.

“I took pictures of the surrounding area. And then I drew it out. I have a little mosaic studio and I used a lot of recycled tiles,” Uhland said.

“These art projects really help build a community,” Stock said. There is a separate sign with all the contributors’ names near the poles.

Although the poles and artwork were completed last year, these installations were recently completed with the addition of the statues. Gamble hopes to complete a fourth pole, and her team consistently checks on the students’ artwork for any damage.

The finished pieces are viewable at the Pacifica State Beach and visitors can take a short walk around the beach to view hundreds of student pieces.

View the original article: PacificaTribune

Ocean Shore School dives into Pacific once more

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PACIFICA TRIBUNE MARINSCOPE COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER THE WEEK OF May 31, 2022, By Jane Northrop
Decorated halls of Ocean Shore School during their Oceans Week

Students walk the decorated halls of Ocean Shore School during their Oceans Week in Pacifica on Thursday. Adam Pardee

The halls at Ocean Shore School are decorated with creatures and artwork relevant to this year’s Oceans Week theme of “Deep Ocean – 2022.” 

Every year, the school named for its proximity to the sea celebrates Oceans Week with a different emphasis each year. Eighth-graders Emilia Ellison and Shalien Ekah led the Tribune around to show the many aspects of Oceans Week.

In one hallway, kindergarteners display their pictures of a seascape on the wall. The seventh- and eighth-graders teach the younger students. Those lessons involve a lot of fun facts about the theme with games and trivia questions.

During Oceans Week students visit the beach to learn  about the local deep-sea environment.

“I taught at the beach,” said Ekah. “They are learning about deep-sea fishing.”

Ellison said she taught a class about the giant octopus and giant squid. The posters that line the walls are made from recycled materials. They said each class has depicted the human impact on the deep sea as part of the lesson.

“That’s what Oceans Week is all about,” said Ellison. “They think about it. I love to see the school decorated.”

Another hallway was dedicated to the problem of plastics, one of the biggest ocean polluters. Clothing is the leading cause of that threat to the ocean.

“We researched that,” said Ellison. 

All the murals at the school have been painted by the students. The fourth- and fifth-grade classes have a science lab they use for experiments. Outside the classroom there is a diagram about different kinds of fish.

“This is all about the fishing,” said Ekah. “We were giving them activities and fun facts and trivia.”

They are keeping up-to-date on the latest discoveries in the fish world. For example, the Yeti crab was discovered in 2005.

“Not everything has been discovered,” said Ellison.

“The whole school does a deep dive,” said Principal Jeanne Bellinger. “This is the first one since 2019. It’s never the same. Having the older kids teach is good leadership training. They learn how hard it is to teach.”

Ekah said they were mapping the sea floor and the shoreline in one of the lessons so students can see where they are. 

Kids learn from hands-on experiences, said Ekah. The sand can show how pollution has affected our beaches.

The older students taught the younger ones about marine snow. They were very surprised to learn that term was part of the marine environment. Marine snow is a shower of organic material falling from upper waters to the deep ocean. Sometimes the phenomenon continues for weeks.

Escarpment is defined on a board in the hallway. It’s a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion. The continental shelf is described. Elephant seals are put on the local map of the area along the San Mateo County towns and beaches.

There are so many questions challenging the students. For example, who invented scuba?  That would be Jacques Cousteau and Emile Gagnan. 

View the original article: PacificaTribune

Ocean Shore’s award-winning course

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VOL. 74, NO. 23| PACIFICA TRIBUNE MARINSCOPE COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER THE WEEK OF June5, 2019 www.bartlettbiographies.com

By Jean Bartlett Tribune Writer

courtesy photo
Through a game she created, an Ocean Shore 7th grader teaches a lesson on coral reefs to younger Ocean Shore students.

The banner in front of Ocean Shore Elementary School defines the school’s signature two-week long program: “Oceans411–Where Ocean meets Education.”But like all great things, the story is in the details. Oceans411, formerly Oceans Week,was created more than 30 years ago by longtime Pacifican and then Ocean Shore parent Penny Keating. The program, which takes place yearly in May, was created to teach the school’s K-8studentsabout marine environments in a hands-on way. Classes take place all over the school and there are daily rotations to Linda Mar Beach.”It’s about where we live,” said Ocean Shore 3rd grade teacher and longtime Pacifican Sheila Gamble Dorn. “It’s about understanding what the ocean is doing. And it follows the adage we protect what we know.”

Gamble-Dorn is the coordinator of Oceans411.As she explained, the program is an immersive learning experience which runs on a seven-year theme cycle. This year’s theme was Coral Reefs.Teeming with life, coral reefs are incredibly diverse underwater ecosystems.The other themes are: Wetlands, Sharks and Prehistoric Seas, Deep Ocean, Marine Mammals, Polar Seas and Wave Zone. All of the school’s K-6 students participate in and rotate through different activities on the year’s theme.The majority of the school’s 7th and 8th graders work in teaching roles with the younger kids.(Some might do web design or work with visiting educators.)This year that teaching included a day with some Pacifica preschoolers.”A group of our students who had done course work with our kindergartners took those same lessons to Seaside Discovery Preschool,” said 7th/8th grade teacher Jason McArthur.”Everyone loved it.Through a game and an interactive discussion, they taught the preschoolers how to take good care of coral reefs. We plan to do this again and hope to reach out to other local preschools as well.”This year’s lessons were divided into the following categories: jellyfish, mangroves/seahorses, turtles, coral polyps, human impact, island life, reef communities, reef geology, and fish and symbiosis. Activities were many and varied. Some mentioned here.

Throughout the school, the school community created hallways brimming with mangroves, coral reef fish, coral polyps, a turtle lagoon and much, much more.

courtesy photo
Jellyfish take over this hallway.

Jean Bartlett photo
During Oceans411, every school hallway is turned into an imaginative marine wonderland to explain and celebrate the year’s theme. The above is one of many colorful teaching panels along the 2nd and 3rd grade corridor.

Students designed their own “drifters.” What are drifters? Jellyfish are drifters. The slow swimmers, which lack backbones, drift along the current.

The kids had the opportunity to be one of four seabirds–an Albatross, Tropic bird, Frigate bird ora Blue-footed Booby–at a Marine Play Station located at Linda Mar Beach. Seabirds are important carriers of nutrients to islands,which in turn feed into healthy coral reef ecosystems.Using the knowledge they learned about their bird, students were challenged to find their way through a school-made rendition of a real-life obstacle.

Oceans411 is a Kent Award recipient. In 2010, the school was named an Ocean Guardian School by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and was the recipient of an Ocean Guardian School federal grant.In 2010 it additionally received a grant from the San Mateo Countywide Pollution Prevention Program. In 2015 it was a recipient of a Family Gift from Pacifican Sandy Mills. In 2016, it received its first grant from The Charles A. Becker Foundation for $10,000. The Burlingame-located foundation repeated that grant in 2017. In 2018, the Foundation provided the school with a $15,000 grant and did the same this year.

McArthur said some of the CABF grant money goes to outreach programs such as “Stow It-Don’t Throw It.”This is a youth-driven, marine debris prevention project which engages youth in “combating the dangers of improperly disposed of monofilament fishing linesby assembling and distributing personal-sized fishing line recycling bins to anglers and boaters, while educating the public on sustainable fishing practices.”

“San Francisco’s Olympic Club donates about 300 empty tennis ball containers to us a year,” McArthur said.”We put California Coastal Commission paperwork in each container which explains why fishing lines should be recycled: they are not biodegradable, and they can entangle and kill wildlife. The handout also provides the locations of the nearest California recycling station. Locally, we get these containers to harbors and fishing boats. People from across the state and in some cases, across the country,contact us for these containers to recycle their fishing lines and we send them out.”

“Something else we did this year because of the CABF grant was fly coral reef specialist Dr. Rebecca Vega Thurber from Oregon to here,” Gamble-Dorn said. (Vega Thurber is an Associate Professor of Microbiology at Oregon State University.) “She generously donated two assemblies for our students as well as an extra day doing mini workshops in our science room.”

Along with visiting specialists and various outreach programs, money from the CABF has allowed Ocean Shore to create a professional Oceans411 website, https://oceans411.org/oceans411/. The website can be viewed by people all over the world.

“What we teach here and learn here annually about the marine environment is not something we want to just keep to ourselves,” Gamble-Dorn said. “We want to share it and the Foundation makes that possible.”

Download/View the original article: PacificaTribune

Tribunewriter Jean Bartlett can be reached at: jean.bartlett.writer@gmail.com.

Earth Day of Action/EcoFest 2018

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Visit us at our booth at EcoFest in Pacifica April 21.

Pacific Beach Coalition in partnership with the City of Pacifica in recognition of Earth Day

— Visit http://pacificabeachcoalition.org/ for more event details.

9am-11:00am cleanups,  gardening & habitat restoration @ Citywide Sites
11:00-2:30pm EcoFest @ Linda Mar State Beach (south parking lot)
GROUP REGISTRATION — OPENS MARCH 2018
VOLUNTEER and SITE REGISTRATION — OPENS MARCH 2018

 

 

Megalodon Cafe sets course for Ocean Shore’s Oceans411

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This chalk drawing by Ocean Shore parent Julie Stock, done to size, looms from an Ocean Shore bulletin board and it represents the dorsal fin of the giant prehistoric shark, the megalodon. – Jean Bartlett/Pacifica Tribune

 

Recently, Ocean Shore Elementary students stepped back into time as they entered the parent-run Megalodon Cafe. A cafe runs every year to give students a “taste” of the school’s theme for the year’s Oceans411 event.

Formerly known as Oceans Week, Oceans411 is the school’s signature week-long program which provides students with an immersive learning experience — via small group instruction, field trips, research, presentations and hands-on activities — to gain knowledge and respect, and to cultivate stewardship for our marine environment. The “week,” which arrives after a year of prep, takes place in May and runs on a seven-year theme cycle. This year’s theme is Sharks and Prehistoric Seas. The other themes are: Coral Reefs, Deep Ocean, Marine Mammals, Polar Seas, Wave Zone and Wetlands.

Read more →

What is Ocean Shore?

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Ocean Shore is a dynamic program built over time from a small alternative program to a school of 450 students in grades Kindergarten through eighth. Parent participation as well as experiential learning are cornerstones of this program. Ocean Shore School prepares students for all public and private high schools through district-approved curriculum, project-based work, hands-on activities, technology us, and field trip experiences. Students from Ocean Shore leave us prepared with strong academic and communication skills, individual confidence, and as cooperative learners with a passion for learning.