Sea lab brings ocean to PCES

PHIL CAMPBELL – In rural Northwest Alabama, students are more likely to know more about real horses than they know about sea horses, but students at Phil Campbell Elementary School learned about many types of marine life this past week.

Thanks to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab’s Bay Mobile, which is a mobile unit that brings marine science classes to schools across the state, PCES students learned about everything from sharks to parasites and how there are many different creatures that live and thrive in the coastal waters in South Alabama.

Greg Graeber, an educator with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, said the Bay Mobile program was made possible by Exxon Mobile and Alabama Power as a way to make sure students who don’t live close to the Gulf Coast are still given the opportunity to learn about marine life just like other students who are able to go to the actual lab to take classes.

“We have six educators that go around the state teaching these marine science classes,” Graeber said. “We gear the presentation toward the curriculum for whatever grade we are talking to at the time, but the great thing about this presentation is that anybody from pre-K up to 12th grade can learn something from it.”

Graeber said since North Alabama is located several hours from the ocean, most of the students he speaks to in the schools have little knowledge about marine science or the creatures that live in the ocean.

“This program is really great because it brings the Alabama Gulf Coast to people who may not get to experience it a lot,” he said.

This was the first stop the Bay Mobile has made in the area, and Graeber said he made the decision to come to Phil Campbell after passing through the city recently.

“As I was on my way to Fayette, I came through Phil Campbell and remembered all the things the town went through and all they’ve had to endure,” he said. “I thought this program might be something fun and different for the students and it might be something they could really use, so I decided this would be the next place I would stop.”

PCES Principal Jackie Ergle said the students seemed to get a lot out of the program.

“Mr. Graeber started the program off for our fifth grade students by talking about vertebrates and invertebrates, which is something they are learning about in their classes,” she said. “Not only is this program fun and interactive but it also reinforces the things they are being taught in the classroom.”

Ergle said the presentation also opens up the door to career possibilities that some students might have never even considered otherwise.

“After one presentation I had a younger student come up to me who said, ‘Mrs. Ergle, I want to be a marine biologist some day,’ and I thought how great it was that he had listened to the presentation and really connected with it enough to think it might be something he wants to do when he’s older,” she said. “He probably didn’t even know about marine biology before today, so that’s great that he’s been exposed to new opportunities and options for his future.”