Zoo-Bot classes enjoy Catalina field trip

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By Kate Lee,
Bluedevilhub.com Staff–

Davis High’s Zoology and Botany classes returned from their three night field trip to Catalina Island on Friday night, Feb. 27. At Catalina, the students stayed at Toyon Bay and kayaked, hiked, snorkeled and visited labs to learn about sea life.

The DHS classes left Tuesday night from the high school and took buses overnight down to Long Beach. On Wednesday morning, they took a boat out to Catalina, where they stayed in cabins at the Catalina Island Marine Institute.

The cabins typically housed six to seven students and were complete with bathrooms and showers.

After arriving on the island, the classes went kayaking, played water games and went on a night hike to stargaze.

The students also went snorkeling and visited the labs to learn about sea hares, jellyfish and other sea life, and one morning they woke up early for a sunrise hike.

Junior Whitney Sacramento’s favorite part of the trip was jumping off of the dock before snorkeling. The water was cold, but wetsuits were provided.

While snorkeling, Sacramento and her friends saw rays, garibaldi, sea urchins, kelp, blacksmiths and several other types of marine life. During the night snorkel, the students saw bioluminescent plankton.

“The snorkeling was all pretty tight, but the night snorkeling was the best,” junior Tommy McTygue said. “It’s a whole different experience at night and there were a lot more rays and bioluminescent critters out there.”

Senior Sarah Allen-­Sutter agrees that the night snorkel was one of the highlights, but also enjoyed kayaking and seeing a giant bison that liked to hang around the camp.

Besides being a lot of fun, the trip was very educational for the students.

“We learned a lot about the different marine environments and their inhabitants throughout the coast of Southern California,” McTygue said. “During a lot of the trip, we got to apply what we had learned in class in a hands-on way.

“Honestly, the entire trip was amazing, and it was just a beautiful location,” Allen­-Sutter said.

To top off the excitement, several of the seniors on the trip received college acceptance letters on the boat ride back.

On the drive back to Davis from Long Beach, one of the buses experienced problems, causing a two and a half hour delay. The last bus got into Davis around 2:30 a.m.

The trip was captured on video by Zoo-Bot student, Riley Donahue, and can be see here: