School News
STEAM & Surfing: Sixth Grade’s Annual Oceanography Trip to Santa Barbara and the Channel Islands
10/02/26
The Seven Arrows sixth grade class just returned from a weeklong trip in Santa Barbara and the Channel Islands this month for their annual Oceanography trip, combining hands-on marine science, surfing, digital storytelling, and Spanish into an immersive week at the ocean.
Watch this video to hear reflections the sixth grade class shared after this life-changing experience.
Taking STEAM Outside the Classroom
The Oceanography trip is a chance for students to study science in the very environments they’re learning about. The trip opened with a session reviewing what students had already covered in STEAM class about whale evolution and migration, then moved straight into a hands-on activity making kelp-based bioyarn, exploring sustainable materials while comparing the similarities and differences between plants and algae. Throughout the week, students practiced scientific sketching using the “ABCDE” method (Accurate, Big, Colorful, Detailed, Explanatory) while observing real specimens along the shoreline. They collected and observed their own bacterial samples under the microscope, and built working “fold scopes,” foldable cardboard microscopes capable of 140x magnification, to bring their field science full circle. It’s the same spirit behind Seven Arrows’ Integrated Experiential Learning approach: connecting what students learn in the classroom to real, hands-on discovery in the world around them.
Facing the Waves Together
Surfing might be the most anticipated part of the week, but it’s also one of the most challenging. Students arrive with wildly different levels of comfort in the ocean: some have grown up around waves, others have barely set foot in the water past their ankles. For most of the class, this is their first time on a surfboard at all.
That’s exactly the point. Every student got dedicated time in the water with instructors from Surf Happens, progressing from dry-land lessons on wave types, safety, and technique to actually paddling out and catching rides, including “party waves,” where more than one surfer shares the same wave together. Falling is part of the process, and so is getting back on the board. Students who spent their first session just getting used to the water found themselves standing up by the end of the week, often with classmates cheering them on.
What makes it work isn’t just the instruction. It’s watching peers who are more at ease in the water coach the ones who aren’t, and watching the ones who are nervous decide to paddle out anyway. As lead teacher Brian Lucett put it, borrowing a bit of Oceanography-trip tradition: “The moment you truly become a sixth grader at Seven Arrows is when you catch a wave in the Oceanography program.”
Science, Spanish, and Storytelling
Alongside their science work, students rotated through Spanish practice with vocabulary tied directly to what they were seeing and doing, and a digital storytelling workshop focused on capturing the emotional core of a story rather than just the play-by-play of events, a skill they practiced by conducting interviews with each other throughout the trip.
A Day on the Channel Islands
One of the week’s most memorable days began before dawn with a ferry ride to Santa Cruz Island. On the way, students experienced an up-close encounter with a massive pod of dolphins, hundreds by one count, swimming and diving alongside the boat. On the island, the group spotted island foxes (a species with no natural predators, and adorably small as a result), kayaked into sea caves, and snorkeled through a kelp forest where they spotted garibaldi, crabs, and even bioluminescent fish.
Community and Connection
Beyond science and surfing, the trip gave students space to build friendships and practice teamwork, including a memorable round of “The Helium Stick,” a deceptively simple team-building challenge that tests communication and patience in equal measure. Evenings included sing-alongs, stargazing, journaling, and a closing campfire where students shared gratitude for the friends and classmates who made the week special. Kicking off the year with this opportunity to learn together and bond as class encourages connection, new friendships, and allows students to see another side of their classmates by taking them out of their typical environment and allowing them to face and overcome challenges together.
Bringing It Home
Back on campus, the sixth graders shared what they’d learned, both academically and personally, with the entire Seven Arrows community at Kuyam. Younger students watched with the kind of attention reserved for a rite of passage, since the Oceanography trip is one they’ve heard about for years and will eventually take themselves. For the sixth graders, reflecting on the week in front of their community was its own kind of closure: a chance to put words to everything they’d faced, learned, and accomplished together.
Seven Arrows’ sixth grade Oceanography trip caps off the students’ elementary years with a hands-on lesson in science, independence, and teamwork right as they step into their final year at Seven Arrows.
