Dive Observer

5215 Crooked Road, Parkville, MO 64152 816-741-5151 / FAX 816-741-6458 email [email protected] Dive Observer Teachers Make a Splash in Dry Area. Scuba Used As a Classroom Tool By Gene Gentrup More and more these days, the value behind scuba diving transcends its recreational and industrial roots. Jumping into the water with a snorkel, mask, fins and regulator does more than relax a workaholic or bring home a steady paycheck. It invigorates people who need a boost of self-esteem. It proves itself as a therapeutic weapon for people with disabilities, as they try to rebuild strength and mobility. It has helped us increase our understanding and awareness of the fragile marine environment. Now a school in California has advanced scuba diving another step — as a classroom tool. Eighth-grade teachers at St. Matthew’s Parish School in Pacific Palisades, California, have each spring since 1994 demonstrated how scuba diving can help kids understand science, math and computers. The program is called Diving Educational Enrichment Project and has proven so successful that in 1997 it received a National Association of Middle Schools Team Teaching Award. Bruce Harlan, a certified diver and a St. Matthew’s science instructor, and some other teachers hatched the idea in 1993 on a ride home from a conference. The group had an ongoing friendly contest in which they would jokingly collect educational buzz words — the kind of snobby acronym verbage presenters like to use to sound good — and started to compose a lighthearted presentation using nothing but these words. When Harlan crafted "Diving Educational Enrichment Project," something inside him struck a nerve. "The more we talked, the less of a joke it became," he said. Harlan and math teacher Bobbie McCuskey nurtured the idea and Harlan floated it to his contacts at ScubaHaus, the dive center through which he became certified. They liked the proposal and the dive store has been a major supporter ever since. The program started in the following spring term. The hurdles that the organizers feared might kill the project — insurance and liability issues — were no big deal, after all. The dive instructors at ScubaHaus carried their own insurance, as did the school. The program has been required for all eighth-graders but no one is required to actually don scuba gear and jump into a swimming pool. "Some kids have issues such as asthma that rule them out," Harlan said. "But this is an academic program. Diving is only the theme." Students must choose a diving topic, research it, choose an experiment, carry it out and assemble a Web page which serves as sort of an electronic lab report. Topics include Boyle’s Law, buoyancy, Dalton’s Law, navigation, Henry’s Law and decompression illness (DCI), sound and hearing underwater and hypothermia. Over a period of two months, students meet for about 90 minutes four days a week and 45 minutes the fifth day. The eighth-graders "get wet" four times in a pool at St. Matthew’s but late in the spring term travel to Pepperdine University for an all-day field trip. The pool there is 16 feet deep and more accommodating to some experiments such as those testing Boyle’s Law. While no student is required to dive, all have chosen to do so for the last years. Few ever turn down the chance, Harlan said. Harlan covers the physics of diving in his science class. He also lectures about buoyancy and the connection between scientific laws and safe diving. Two other teachers handle mathematics in which students are introduced to navigation and orienteering. Students gain insight into the geometric concepts used by divers and pilots to determine position and direction. Diving physiology is woven throughout the program. Topics such as DCI and nitrogen narcosis relate the physical laws to their effects on the human body. The focus is on the circulatory and respiratory systems. Students also work in pairs to research, design experiments and present their findings on a computer. Another teacher helps students design their first Web page using their experiments as the content. The students’ experiments can be viewed at the school’s Web site at www.stmatthewsschool.com/deep. Outfitting the students for their time underwater is a responsibility shared by ScubaHaus and the students. ScubaHaus loans rental equipment and provides instructors. Students must provide their own gear including mask, fins and snorkel. They are encouraged to buy equipment based on how well it fits, not how it is priced. Families concerned about costs are urged to share equipment with students using the pool on different days. ScubaHaus lets students exchange their gear after it has been used. The program has proven popular at the school. Since DEEP started in 1994, the number of kids who have gone on to become certified divers is 15-20, a total Harlan thought would be higher. But each year, right after the school year ends, several students take off on a school-related trip that conflicts with classes that ScubaHaus offers. Next spring, the dive store will offer weekend lessons for the eighth-graders at the beginning of the DEEP projects, Harlan said. DEEP not only builds scuba diving interest among the students. Sometimes parents join or return to the scuba world because of their child’s experience. Count actor Tom Hanks among them. His daughter completed the DEEP program. Another actor, Mike Newman, had a role on the TV series Baywatch and in real life is a trained lifeguard. His child is a DEEP graduate and his wife is a teacher at the school. Harlan said he thought more teachers would be interested in duplicating the program for their own school but so far interest has not been strong. The reason, he said, is that teachers might consider the liability and insurance issues too difficult to overcome. "It’s not as difficult as it looks," Harlan said. For more information about DEEP, contact Bruce Harlan at St. Matthew’s Parish School at (310) 454-1350, Ext. 502; e-mail him at [email protected]; or visit www.stmatthewsschool.com/deep. Diving Notes and News MYSTERY SURROUNDS SINKING OF REEF SOCIETY VESSELS Anticipation for the two-ship sinking ceremony had mounted. The T-shirts were printed. A three-day weekend of dives, barbecue, music and flybys was set. But someone had other ideas for the Alberni Reef Society’s (ARS) "once-in-a-lifetime event" to sink as artificial reefs two Chinese fishing vessels off the coast of British Columbia. Just one day before the celebration was to start and three days before the sinkings, the boats in Port Alberni harbor sank under mysterious circumstances. Now the group will have to wait a few weeks to raise the vessels and probably sink them quietly, without fanfare, said Sven Juthans, vice president of ARS. Divers probing the sunken boats found three seacocks open on one of the vessels and one seacock open on the other. A seacock is a valve below the waterline in the hull of a ship, used to control the intake of sea water. Juthans said he is convinced someone opened the seacocks but is baffled as to why. The ships were going to be sunk June 10 in a cove in China Creek Park, south of Port Alberni, in water 40-80 feet (12-24 m) deep and about 150 feet (45 m) from shore. The final resting place for the vessels will be close enough to shore that divers will not need a boat to get there, a fact that Juthans mentions with pride. "They’ll be the only artificial reefs in British Columbia accessible from shore," he said. The suspicion surrounding the unusual sinking prompted another group, the Artificial Reef Society of British Columbia (ARSBC), to declare its innocence. In a prepared statement, ARSBC President Jay Straith "affirmed no involvement" and said "We were distressed to learn two ships being prepared by the Alberni Reef Society had sunk at their dock … The Alberni Reef Society never sought our advice in preparing its ships. We are prepared to work with provincial and federal investigators, should the request be made." Juthans said he does not think ARSBC had anything to do with the mystery but insists someone did. The society spent about $80,000 to clean the two ships. A protection indemnity policy will protect the society from the costs of raising the boats but it will have to pay a $1,000 deductible, Juthans said. The two fishing vessels were among four seized three years ago off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. The ships carried 600 Chinese illegal immigrants. The refugees were sent back but the boats stayed and were eventually purchased by the ARS. The society plans to prepare a third ship for use as an artificial reef. Juthans said the society cannot afford to strip the fourth ship so it has been given away. ARCHAEOLOGISTS UNVEIL TREASURES FROM LOST CITY Artifacts from the "most exciting find in the history of marine archaeology" are being shown by excavation leaders in Alexandria, Egypt. They have brought up some of the hidden treasures from the ruins of the ancient port city of Herakleion in water 20-30 feet (6-9 m) deep, 3.7 miles (6.4 km) off Egypt’s northern coast. Archaeologists scouring the Mediterranean seabed have unveiled surface statues, coins and jewelry and what is considered the most remarkable find so far — an intact black granite stela, or tablet, similar to one found in 1899 now stored in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum. Both feature an edict of Pharaoh Nektanebos the First imposing a 10 percent levy on Greek goods to finance a temple to the goddess Neith.

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