CARLSBAD — After spending a semester raising white seabass in the classroom, students at Carlsbad High School released the fledgling croakers into Agua Hedionda Lagoon this month in the hopes of helping replenish a declining population.
More than two dozen AP environmental science students filled red buckets halfway with water and began scooping seabass from a cooler on May 23 near the lagoon’s shore. Each fish had a tracker previously installed into its right cheek before being transferred to the buckets.
Students then carried the buckets single-file to the shoreline and waded knee-deep into the lagoon before tipping them over to release the fish they had nurtured into the Pacific Ocean.
The release and caretaking process is part of Seabass in the Classroom, a program established in 2011 by Hubbs-Seaworld Research Institute, a nonprofit research organization focused on conserving and renewing marine life.
The group aims to teach high school students in San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles counties about sustainability and conservation efforts through a hands-on, semester-long caretaking and data collection process.
The Seabass in the Classroom program is part of a larger institute initiative to help replenish the Southern California native fish population, which has suffered a long-term decline due to human activities like overfishing, pollution and habitat destruction.
“It was really exciting because, obviously, we’ve been building up to this moment for a while,” said Yousha Hashmi, a senior at Carlsbad High. “It seems like everyone participated and really enjoyed, at least from what I can tell, the process.”
Hashmi said his class periodically checked the water quality and basic saltwater chemistry of the tank, where students kept the fish throughout the semester to ensure they were healthy and on track for their eventual release.
Ryan Geraci, a senior at Carlsbad High, said he enjoyed working with his classmates and witnessing the final product of their work together throughout the semester.
“It was nice to be in groups and be able to actually interact with your classmates in this thing that we’ve been doing all semester,” Geraci said.
Danielle Haulsee, chief science officer at Hubbs-Seaworld Research Institute, said the program supplies classrooms with juvenile white seabass from the institute’s Carlsbad hatchery and a mobile recirculating aquaculture system (or a controlled environment that provides a home for fish in the classroom).
She said taking care of the fish helps students learn about conservation, aquaculture as a tool for replenishment and the impacts of fisheries on marine ecosystems.
“Everything is more fun, engaging and inspiring when you can do something with your hands and you’re not just reading about it and somebody’s not just telling you about it,” Haulsee said. “It’s a great way for them to feel ownership over this project they are mainly working on as a class throughout the year.”
Hayley Heiner, Hubbs-Seaworld education and outreach manager, said she has worked directly with the class at Carlsbad High throughout the semester and has seen “a lot of engagement” from students in the program.
“It’s been really awesome to work with them,” Heiner said.
She said she took students on a hatchery tour and talked with them about different internship and volunteer opportunities at the hatchery and institute.
“It’s definitely somewhere that they can go for early career jobs so hopefully we’ll continue seeing some of them,” Heiner said.
Laura Chapman, vice president of community relations at Wells Fargo, said the foundation sponsored a $40,000 grant for the institute this year, which has helped continue the program. Chapman said the foundation did the same last year.
“For Wells Fargo, it’s so important for the youth to be involved and to teach further generations because this is really part of what we all do, and what we all strive to do so that we can have a better world and a cleaner environment and I cannot speak higher of any organization than Hubbs-Seaworld Research Institute,” Chapman said.
