The Art of the Ecosystem

By Oliver Lukacs

Jan. 22 -- "Understanding the big picture," Ken Vander Veen said staring up at the 1,300-square-foot teaching aid. "That everybody kind of needs everybody. You take one or two animals out, there's going to be a domino effect on others."

A science teacher at Lincoln Middle School, Vander Veen watched as kids applied the final touches to the 28-foot-tall, 48-foot-wide mural of a kelp forest painted by students and a professional artist and talked about the lessons learned.

Donated by muralist David Legaspi III, the painting -- which will be used to teach the ecosystem in earth sciences class -- is a cross-section of the ocean with sea lions, pelicans, and sea gulls above the water. Below the surface are dolphins, rays, sharks, various fish and many other animals.

Giant kelp, reaching from the ocean floor to the surface, unifies the scene. "It's the thing that anchors the ecosystem," said Vander Veen. "There's something like 800 species that depend on kelp one way or another."

Kelp directly feeds and protects hundreds of fish and when it sheds produces organic material to feed plankton (tiny plant/animal sea life at the mercy of the current), which, in turn, are munched on by microscopic-sized-fish, Vander Veen explained.

The giant teaching aid will be incorporated into the kelp-centric 6th and 7th grade science curriculum at Lincoln that has children working side-by-side with marine biologists to experiment with, and grow, giant kelp in the classroom.

As part of this three-year-old cooperation with the Santa Monica Baykeeper Kelp Restoration Project, the students go on a boat trip to a local kelp forest. There they watch marine biologists plant their class-grown kelp in areas that have been stripped of their native plants by pollution, over-fishing and the recurring El Niño phenomena.

"My contribution to this is that I am forcing David and the kids to stay authentic," Vander Veen said of the scientific accuracy imposed on Legaspi. "One, they have to look right, and two, they have to be found locally."

In fact, with kelp forests growing as high as 30 to 50 feet, Santa Monica Bay served as the model for the scientifically accurate mural of kelp, "the fastest growing algae," growing as much as "two feet a day in some places," Vander Veen said with a hint of braggadocio.

"Hundreds of fish and invertebrate, plenty of these animals just eat (the kelp) directly, just nibble off the leaves," said Vander Veen pointing to the mural. "For other animals (the kelp is) a huge protection mechanism. All the smaller fish come in here to hide, with all the big fish chasing them in there to eat. That's why you see them (on the mural) kind of eyeballing each other."

One form of interdependence, as Terri Morris, a 12-year-old 6th grader with braces smilingly pointed out, is how the little yellow banana-looking Senorita fish, which she painted, feed on the parasites on the skins of bigger fish, like the Giant Black Sea Bass, as depicted in the mural.

"So they clean them, it's like a chain -- they work together," Morris said. "It's like a deal: 'If you don't eat me I'll clean you,'" she said, perhaps unaware that she was describing the essence of the ecosystem.

For the mural, Vander Veen was looking for an artist who would do the project below "prohibitive" costs. Vander Veen had been given an estimates exceeding $18,000 for the project, and had nearly given up when Legaspi showed up.

Legaspi, who together with kids had painted murals at all 11 of the elementary schools in the school district, had paid for them largely out of his own pocket. He offered to take on the project at cost -- just the money for the needed materials.

Vander Veen decided to go before the student council -- "all parliamentary procedure" -- of about 18 sixth and seventh graders, one with a gavel, to ask for funding, which he got roughly a year later with one condition: "As long as kids got to be involved."

"Bureaucracy," Vander Veen said laughingly about the year delay for funding.

For both Vander Veen and Legaspi the completion of the mural holds a special significance.

"I've been staring at this white wall for the last seven years just going, 'There's got to be something we can put on this wall,'" said Vander Veen. "I thought a kelp forest would be perfect."

For Legaspi, who began his first mural in Malibu -- also of a kelp forest -- one year ago to the month, this mural marks a milestone in his painting career. "I felt like I have achieved something," he said.

A Malibu resident and former architect who quit his job to paint public murals, Legaspi said he wanted to complete the local school circuit before taking jobs outside the city, offers that started coming in because of his work at the schools.

"I love to work with lots of kids," Legaspi said. "I left my job because this is more powerful for me, it's calling me," he said enthused, his sweater covered with layers of paint smears. "First I was using my weekends to work with kids to paint schools, then my holidays, and then my annual leave.

"I want to motivate kids at a grass-roots level" to become "more self-confident" said Legaspi, who didn't get that kind of hands on motivation when he began painting in his native Philippines at age 7.

"Some kids say, 'You're going to let us work on a mural like this? We're going to mess it up.' But I try to teach them not to underestimate themselves, and once they start painting they realize, 'Oh it's cool and it's not bad at all.' Next thing you know they're proud of it, and that means a lot."

"Look at that," Legaspi said with a childish excitement pointing to a Leopard Shark on the mural. "A kid did that, that is awesome shading."

Adrienne Beitcher, a 14 year old 8th grader also with braces, had paint splotched on her shirt from the yellow and orange starfish she just finished. Proudly pointing to her artwork, she noted the difference between the Knobby Starfish, which are knobby, and the Bat Stars, "which are more webbed."

"It looks really good and really realistic," said Beitcher, pointing out the academic and aesthetic benefits of the mural, "'cause all the walls are kind of plain" at school. She decided to join the project because "it would be cool to have a kelp forest, and it also has to do with the 6th and 7th grade science curriculum, a little."

Beitcher said she enjoyed painting sea life, because she likes sea animals -- she owns a white goldfish called "Sugar" -- with her favorite being the arctic-dwelling Beluga whale, "because it's cute and makes weird sounds."