While most kids travel outside the school for a field trip, Dauphin Island Sea Lab brought the field trip to North Alabama this week.

Students at Tanner High School were able to see, learn about and even touch many of the animals they would see on a trip to Dauphin Island without ever leaving campus, thanks to the BayMobile van that arrived Thursday for a two-day visit. High school students checked out the array Thursday, while middle schoolers got to visit Friday.

“A lot of these kids will never get an opportunity to go to the beach or go to Dauphin Island. They’ll never get to see the things they’re seeing here,” said Christy Leopard, who teaches science to seventh and eighth graders at Tanner. “It’s great that Dauphin Island is willing to bring the field trip to us.”

DISL Marine Educator Lauren Still said she loves getting to share information about Dauphin Island and its critters with students. It gives them an opportunity to learn just how connected they are to the ocean at the other end of the state.

“All of these things live in the waters of Alabama, just off the beaches,” she said of her dozens of specimens on display in the Tanner science lab. “Potentially, (students) have been swimming with these animals and not even known it.”

She said her favorite part of each class is seeing that first moment of shock when she holds up a dead octopus or eel. While dried bones and shells are also part of the collection, some creatures are preserved in liquid and provide quite the slimy experience for students.

“It’s just this goopy-looking, stringy thing, and they all have this super curious but ‘oh my god is that really dead’ freak-out, and then all of a sudden, they’re like, ‘Wait. There’s more things like that?'”

Among the students reacting Friday was Marley Lewter, an eighth grader in Leopard’s physical science class. Lewter said her friends got a little frustrated by how excited she was to see the mobile lab.

“My friends told me to shut up when I wouldn’t stop talking about it,” Lewter said. “I was that excited.”

She said she wants to be a marine biologist, and while she was grossed out when Still first held up a dead eel, the presentation made her want to be a marine biologist that much more.

Still explained DISL offers a variety of programs throughout the year for students who are interested in learning more about the creatures that live in Alabama’s waters. Groups from around the country travel to the lab on school field trips. Day camps are available for children ages 5 to 13, and overnight camps are available for grades 5 to 12. High schoolers can even earn a science elective credit toward their high school diploma and a biology undergraduate credit from the University of West Alabama through DISL’s marine science course.

Those interested can visit https://www.disl.org for more information on the various programs, including any costs, request forms and application deadlines.