Students digging into Back Bay restoration

NEWPORT BEACH — Candace Leuthold’s students aren’t just learning about the environment this year. They’re also doing their part to save it.

Every month, the Early College High School biology teacher leads her ninth-graders to a restoration site on the Back Bay, just blocks away from the campus. The classes spent the first few months of the year listening to lectures, but last week, they broke out their gloves and shovels and set to work preserving the wetlands.

Leuthold’s students planted more than 200 shrubs in the soil on a tiny stretch of land near Irvine Avenue and Santiago Drive. The California Coastal Commission, which oversees the county-owned property, has spent the last several years eliminating nonnative plant species and replacing them with native ones.

“There’s a small percentage of wetlands that are remaining, and the birds that migrate in the winter have to stop here to refuel,” Leuthold said. “Since so many of those pit stops have been eliminated, if we don’t protect this, we’re looking at a lost species.”

Shortly before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Leuthold’s class met with officials from the Coastal Commission, who demonstrated how to dig holes and transfer potted plants into the ground. The school obtained most of the plants from the Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano.

According to Jennifer Naegele of the Coastal Commission, the combination of breeze and local housing developments has led to a number of invasive species — including ice plants and mustard — growing along the Back Bay. Naegele said the land might take years to completely rid itself of non-native species, but added that the students’ work made a difference.

Early College High School, which opened last August and has only one grade level so far, uses the Back Bay for a number of activities. The art class is sketching the wetlands, and Leuthold is trying to get a grant from the Coastal Commission to lead her students on kayak tours.

For the moment, ninth-grader Cassandra Rubalcava said she was happy to do her part for the wetlands.

“It’s a tough job in the sun, but you get the hang of it,” said Cassandra, 14.

Eric Noel, 13, noted that planting shoots in the ground was only the beginning.

“This is not all the work,” he said. “There’s more work. There are people who raise these plants, and that takes a lot of time and care.”