Project Activities

Floating Lab Boat Trip – The centerpiece of this project is the Floating Lab, which has been operating in since 1974 through the Los Angeles County Office of Education. The Floating Lab, which is being upgraded with new scientific equipment and activities, provides County school students and their teachers the opportunity to take half-day trips on a boat, participating in hands-on, marine-science learning activities including:

  • a plankton lab
  • water visibility testing
  • bottom sediment study
  • water chemistry
  • wildlife observation.

These shipboard experiences help students to see first-hand how human behavior affects the quality of air, water, habitat, animal life, plant life, and human life in the harbor specifically and in the students’ communities generally.

Curriculum – Aligned to California Content Standards, the Think Watershed Teacher’s Guide, which is distributed to all classes taking the Floating Lab field trip, includes:

  • pre-trip activities
  • cruise plan and preparation guidelines
  • post-trip activities, including website data reporting, and service learning projects

Interactive Website – Students will be able to post results of data collected from on-board experiments and compare their data with those from other classes.