April 15, 2005

Teaching Kids the Stewardship of the Sea
By Arthur R. Vinsel, Community News Reporter

     It began with a card table full of seashells explained by lifeguard John Olguin in the 1930s. Although San Pedro’s Cabrillo Marine Aquarium (CMA) has grown enormously since then, it remains intentionally and distinctively different from its flashier, more touristy counterparts, such as Long Beach’s Aquarium of the Pacific. It aims to succeed less along the lines of a splashy commercial venture than along the lines of a diversified, resilient ecosystem, deeply embedded in its local setting.
     True, its multi-million-dollar Cabrillo Beach campus of pools, ponds, tanks and troughs was designed by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry. But you’ll never sees splashy TV commercials for its array of displays and it won’t cost a week’s wages for a family of six to visit. The heart and soul of CMA is its mission as an educational venture, teaching stewardship of the seas. This mission draws flocks of eager youngsters to its doors year after year, and has built a solid cadre of dedicated staff who embody CMA’s mission and communicate it effortlessly.
     “We’re not a big, splashy aquarium,” says longtime Programs Director Larry Fukuhara, who abandoned his family’s posies-and-petunias nursery in Long Beach 25 years ago with a biology degree from Cal State, San Diego to immerse himself in the fish, flora and fauna of global oceans.
     “Working at my folks’ nursery was like working on a farm,” groans Fukuhara, who in recent years has cavorted in San Pedro’s annual Christmas parade in a grunion costume, which is either a perk or a liability in an educational aquarium career.
     “We’re trying to forget that now and move on with life,” quips Fukuhara, who at 57 is one of the longer-tenured CMA department heads under Executive Director Susanne Lawrenz-Miller, who is quick to stress that CMA-style education is seldom dour—as the grunion costume might suggest.
     CMA’s 35th Annual Earth Day Celebration (Saturday, April 23) will provide a typical, if heightened experience of what CMA is all about—not just the learning that always seems to happen anyway.
     “There are lots of other things to see and do and reasons to come,” Lawrenz-Miller explains. “It’s spring, it’s beautiful. It’s a perfect excuse for a day at the beach. This is our 70th year of operation. We were known for many years as ‘Cabrillo Marine Museum’ and we stll have many exhibits and displays.”
     Things kick off with a mammoth beach clean up from 8 to 10 a.m., followed by festivities and events running until 3 p.m. and involving some 40 agencies and organizations. There’ll be music, food, fun and drawings for great take-home prizes. You can even participate in hatching grunion eggs to be raised in the CMA nursery tanks.
     Participating groups and organizations range all over the Harbor Area and Southern California, including two marine science magnet schools, one from the Mesa, AZ area, that bring students to San Pedro every year for a weekend campout and study trip.
     CMA’s facility at 3720 Stephen M. White Drive, just off Pacific Avenue, is open daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on any weekday may be hosting up to 1,000 childen from Los Angeles Unified School District campuses for educational tours. Children even take part in ongoing CMA marine science research studies, which is rare in academic circles.
     “It’s all about community education and research,” says Mike Shaadt, 51, in charge of CMA exhibits where studies of marine life are done on a continuing basis. “We highlight ways in which the earth can be appreciated and cared-for, so people and organisms who share it will have a nice, safe, viable home.”
     Schaadt, who joined the staff in 1989, notes the theme of this year’s Earth Day fair festivities at CMA is The Wonder of Water, borrowed from the American Zoo and Aquarium Association’s 2005 recommendation to all members to focus on this area in their ongoing educational programs.
     Schaadt has a B.A. and M.A. degree in Marine Science from Cal State, Long Beach and worked in their dean’s office several years before his job opened up at the CMA facility, housed for years in the old Cabrillo Beach Bath House.
     Steve Vogel, 43, is Educational Curator at the beachside complex and works closely with educational specialist Linda Chilton, 46, a longtime teacher whose volunteer work at CMA evolved into a full-time job after she took a leave of absence.
     “It’s all about community education and research. We do it with kids right here at our elbows. We are actually known as the ‘education aquarium,’” says Vogel. “It’s an educational opportunity-a-minute.”
     He and Chilton work closely with the CMA volunteer group called the Sea Rangers, which started out for middle school age kids but was inundated by younger children who demanded a chance to do something worthwhile too. And they were joined in turn by adults and some retirees.
     “They’re awesome,” she says of the Sea Rangers who do beach cleanups and many other chores and tasks. The younger kids and the older folks wanted to know why we were discriminating against them,” says Chilton, who is co-coordinator of Earth Day events along with Vogel.
     Chilton has worked there 14 years and has a Master’s Degree in special education, but began service to CMA strictly as a volunteer.
     “Through education, people can learn how we must take care of our planet,” she believes. “Those who do things harmful to the environment often just don’t know better. It’s done through ignorance, not malice.”
     For additional information, visit the CMA website at www.cabrilloaq.org.

Larry Fukuhara, Program Director of the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, abandoned his parent’s plant nursery some 25 years ago to immerse himself in the study and observation of the world’s oceans. Photo: Bernard Kane

Mike Shaadt, Exhibit Curator, sits in the aqua culture lab, part of the new expansion at CMA. Photos: Bernard Kane.

Educator Linda Chilton, far right, works with school-age children in the marine lab. She and Educational Curator Steve Vogel lead the Sea Rangers, the CMA volunteer group comprised of children and adults.