By VALERIE SWEETEN
CHRONICLE CORRESPONDENT

Ryan Baldwin, a freshman at The Kinkaid School, didn’t realize when he agreed to participate in the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama that he would be studying an important piece of the Gulf history.

The BP Gulf oil spill had affected that part of Alabama and activities Baldwin and the group scheduled.

Ryan Baldwin, a Kinkaid School freshman, recently attended a Sea Lab camp in Alabama and studied the affects of the BP oil spill on marine life in that area. Photo by Thomas Nguyen

At the week-long Lab, Baldwin participated in marine life dissection, plankton gathering and viewing, Global Positioning System usage, salt marsh exploration, alligator sightings and journeying with the Alabama Discovery research vessel.

The Dauphin Island Sea Lab is a Discovery Hall Program, the DISL’s education and outreach department. There are four one-week camps offered to middle-school students called Gulf Island Journey.

Shari Hiltbrand, Kinkaid’s 8th-grade physical science teacher and science curriculum coordinator, attended the Lab in 2009. She recommended Baldwin attend the Lab after discovering his love for marine life and science.
Since Baldwin attended the session, he’ll be eligible to return as a junior in high school and receive class credit, she said.

Hiltbrand emphasized how this opportunity is immeasurable in learning experiences.

“Ryan is one of our top students who has tremendous enthusiasm,” Hiltbrand said. “This was an incredible experience for him because it’s so hands on. They’re interacting directly with scientists and working in a fully functional oceanography lab.”

Ryan became interested in marine science after his father shared his college experience at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Biology Center with his son.

“We wanted him to see there are things you can do for a living and are as fun as you want to make it. This was a summer enrichment program that had an unexpected angle on things where he got to see how fragile things are,” Bob Baldwin said. “You can’t take these things for granted. It worked out real well.”

Ryan Baldwin was witness to a coastline in jeopardy he said. The oil spill affected plants, organisms and the fish they saw.

“We did see the boons and boats gathering oil,” Baldwin said. “The fish we got to identify had to be thrown back in the water. They limited where we could go so we wouldn’t be near the oil on the beaches and marshes. We saw it seeping in and the effect it was going to have.”

The most important lesson Baldwin brought home was the issue of pollution.

“We saw how plastic is polluting the ocean and trash dumps. We learned how the fish and animals eat it and how it never gets out of their bodies,” Baldwin said.

Overall, Baldwin is excited about returning to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in a few years and is recruiting friends to join him.

“I made a lot of new friends. It made me think more of what I want to do in science and how I can help out animals,” said Baldwin.

For more information on the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, call 251-861-2141.