Students do bay research

In the forward section of the research vessel Yellowfin, Estella Baghdasaryan, 16, maneuvered one of five remote-controlled submarines through a control panel equipped with a high-resolution monitor.

"It was pretty difficult," Estella said. "You have to make sure you move it slightly because it moves really fast."

Fourteen students from Clark Magnet High School's marine-science class visited the Southern California Marine Institute on Thursday to search for heavy-metal contamination in the Los Angeles Harbor.

The school bought one of the five shoe-box-sized submarines with the help of a $500,000 grant for science programs, said Dominique Evans-Bye, who teaches the class.

"It's really helpful," said Adriana Valencia, 16. "It can help us with our research. We can see the samples underwater and it can pick things up."

The boat made its way to Banning's Landing in the Port of Los Angeles, and to a bus submerged right off the shore, that Los Angeles public-safety divers use for training purposes, Evans-Bye said.

The students worked together to collect information that would help them give a presentation in February for the Environmental and Spatial Technologies Conference in Arkansas.

"I think it's been going real well so far," Estella said.

"We were all working as one big group and helping each other out…. I don't think anyone will slack off because we're all really interested in this. So we all like doing our own part."

About half a mile from shore in the Los Angeles Harbor, an 80-pound steel clamp called a Van Veen grab dipped about 65 feet into the ocean from the rear of the Yellowfin.

"It didn't have a distinct smell of sulfur, so we don't think there's any sulfur in there," 16-year-old Christopher Mangasarian said on the sediment sample the grab brought up.

Though sulfur is a naturally occurring element, having too much in the sediment means there is not enough animal-life in the water breaking down the bacteria that causes the rotten-egg-smelling sulfur, said Melissa Mandrup, demonstration technician with the research institute.

Rayhan Yacub, 16, sat at the back of the boat busily reading off numbers from a hand-held Global-Positioning System unit and a laptop computer.

"I record the coordinates off the GPS and I input the data into this," Rayhan said pointing to the laptop.

Across from him sat Adriana Valencia, 16, who wrote down numbers on labels and a piece of paper.

"I do the chain of custody," she said. "It's basically the form that tells us what time we got the sample, where it was we got the sample, when and what kind it is."