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High School intern Michael Barga with Marshmallow, the endangered Kemp's ridley turtle he has cared for. The turtle is recovering from hypothermia, among other things, and is on schedule for re-release to the ocean this summer. NOAA/NMFS photo by George Liles

Barga with LuSeal, the WHSA harbor seal, as she gets a first look at her temporary home in New Bedford's Buttonwood Park Zoo. Mike helped with the move, and plans to keep up on LuSeal's progress from Ohio. NOAA/NMFS photo by David Radosh.

by George Liles

High school student Michael Barga does a little bit of everything in a typical day: make fish food in a blender, feed fish, clean tanks, weigh turtles.

The 18-year-old Ohio student came to the Woods Hole Science Aquarium in mid-February for a seven-week internship. An energetic guy with wide-ranging interests, Barga fit nicely in the little aquarium where every staff member is expected to be a jack-of-all-trades – where the aquarist writes exhibit signs, the curator paints walls, and the veterinarians help plumb the tanks. The high school volunteer pitched right in, washing dishes, taking pictures for the aquarium web site, designing a new aquarium brochure, and monitoring water quality.

Barga came to the aquarium on an unusual program run by the Linworth Alternative School, a public school in Worthington, Ohio that emphasizes experiential learning and independent study. Linworth seniors finish their academic work in the first semester of their fourth year, freeing them to spend their last high school semester doing internships called “Walkabouts.”

Keenly interested in marine biology, Barga found the WHSA online and read that while the aquarium does not have a formal program for high school interns during the academic year, the staff will consider hosting students during the school year on a case-by-case basis. Linworth Walkabout coordinator Jennifer Woods contacted the aquarium staff and asked if the aquarium would host Mike.

“We don’t have a program for students in the winter, and we can’t provide housing, so we weren’t sure how it would work out,” says Rachel Metz, the WHSA aquarist who supervises volunteers and interns. “But Mike and his family solved the housing problem.”

The aquarium staff warned the Ohio youth that he wouldn’t find many people his age in Woods Hole in February, but the fledgling marine biologist was undaunted. Arriving by car in the middle of the biggest snow storm to hit Woods Hole in the winter of 2006, Barga settled into an MBL dormitory and began his Woods Hole Walkabout.

Barga impressed the aquarium staff immediately with his enthusiasm. “He is always coming up with new ideas, and new ways to solve problems,” Metz says. “He is really interested in learning. He always has so many questions – he’s doesn’t just stand there and nod.”

Metz was impressed that the student’s curiosity extends beyond the aquarium. “He pays attention to the world around him,” Metz says. “He reads the newspaper over his lunch – how many high school kids do that?”

In the last week of his Walkabout, Barga says his favorite aquarium experience has been feeding LuSeal, the harbor seal he helped care for before she was moved temporarily to Buttonwood Park Zoo in advance of a seal pool renovation project. The trip to the New Bedford Zoo provided one of Barga’s other favorite experiences – “getting molested by an elephant” that decided to explore the bag Barga was carrying over his shoulder.

His least favorite experience was cleaning tanks, although even that had its virtues – “it’s actually fun and relaxing, and it needs to be done.”

And how did Barga cope with being a high school student living on his own in a community of elders?

“It’s not bad,” he says. He wasn’t used to living in a space as small as a dorm room, but he passes his time talking to friends online and watching movies on his computer. And he has a daily (more-or-less) journal that he keeps as part of his Walkabout requirements.

When Barga’s seven-week stint in the aquarium ended March 31, the budding marine biologist headed off for a Walkabout in his hometown of Worthington. Barga plans to spend his last seven weeks of high school camped out Scottie’s, a small coffee house where he’ll write a book. The subject of his creative writing Walkabout is not quite pinned down, but it’ll probably have something to do with Kafka, and existentialism, and it’ll definitely have a science fiction element, “Because, c’mon, science fiction rocks,” Barga explains.

Posted April 7, 2006