MaST Center Director Russ Higley, under the center’s reconstructed gray whale skeleton, says labs will be easier with hybrid classes.
Highline’s MaST Center hopes to increase its catch of live students this Winter Quarter.
The college’s Marine Science and Technology Center will begin offering live classes again next quarter. For more than a year, they have stayed afloat via online and virtual classes.
It is much harder in a virtual class to learn hands-on, said Rus Higley, director of the MaST. The numbers for oceanography and marine biology have remained consistent and this Fall Quarter, although there was a drop this summer with online which is the first time that has happened, said Russ Higley, director of the MaST.
The plan for winter is for hybrid classes, Higley said.
“We will offer Hybrid, they will have in-person a day a week and the rest will be online,” he said. “Both online and face to face have challenges and opportunities. Truly hands-on activities are much harder and a virtual class doesn’t let the students see the animals in our aquarium, let alone touch or feed them. Good online classes require a ton of preparation.”
Despite the MaST having been in operation since the 1970s, students are sometimes still surprised that their class is in Redondo and not on the main campus. The center is located four miles south of Highline at 28203 Redondo Beach Dr., Des Moines.
Higley said student should know “That there is a MaST building. If students run into a marine biology class they usually don’t know it is in the MaST building away from campus.”
The center also reopened its aquarium to the public in July of 2021. The aquarium is open on Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and admission is free.
The aquarium has 13 tanks holding 3,000 gallons of free-flowing seawater, containing more than 250 species of marine life.
Including an octopus. The MaST gets a permit every couple of years to catch a young octopus, who will stay at the aquarium until reaching mating age and then is released back into Puget Sound.
Via a contest on Facebook, MaST vans voted for “Coral” for the new octopus’ name.
The MaST Center is located in Redondo south of Highline’s main campus.
“She is still a young octopus and has an arm span of about 24-26 inches,” Higley said. “By June it will grow around 8 feet. She is very inquisitive and will follow you both in her tank and with her eyes. She seems to like to hold onto the biology staff and their cleaning tools but she is very gentle.”
Like all octopuses, Coral is very bright, Higley said. “Coral has even learned to open a plastic Easter egg and finds food in her Potato head.”
For more information, you can visit the MaST website at https://mast.highline.edu/