Regina Sumner sounded more like a student on the first day of school than a teacher with 23 years of experience in the classroom as she sat on the deck of the U.S. Navy Pathfinder yesterday morning.

A fifth-grade science and reading teacher from Saltillo, Miss., Sumner is one of 13 teachers from the Mainland who will leave the Pearl Harbor port today on a six-day research mission to California as part of the Navy's Sea Scholars program.

"All the surveys we do here we can (share) with students and colleagues," Sumner said. "Hands-on experience is what it's all about. The more you do, the more you learn."

Sumner, like all of the teachers here, is on a mission to learn from the Navy how math and science is used every day in the maritime world. When the ship docks in California, she plans on taking her stories and experiences back to the classroom to share with her students.

Sea Scholars is in its 10th year and has given nearly 300 teachers hands-on experience with ocean life and research. Run by the Navy and the University of Southern Mississippi, the program was designed to increase student interest in the marine sciences.

The teachers on this trip were chosen from more than 50 applicants. To take part, they had to pay their own way to Hawai'i. The Navy pays for their expenses aboard the oceanography ship, but the teachers will be working 16-hour days.

Some of the experiments they'll be conducting are plankton tows, core drills, coastal mapping, water-clarity tests, depth tests and research of living organisms. They'll study biological and physical oceanography, meteorology and astronomy.

"I teach in a land-locked state," said Mary Ruch, a sixth-grade teacher from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. "Most of the kids never see (ocean) water, ever. It's like going to outer space. It's a new world, a world they never discovered."

The expedition will spend 2 1/2 days mapping the coastline of the Big Island and the underwater seamount Lo'ihi, Hawai'i's newest island forming near the Big Island, before continuing across the Pacific to port in California.

Mark Jarrett, the senior scientist aboard the USNS Pathfinder, said giving the teachers practical application of math and science energizes classrooms.

"The Navy uses math and science every day," Jarrett said, "and it's very important to have good students studying oceanography. It's a very important field."

Although experiments on the Pathfinder are usually used for Navy research only, teachers on the trip will be able to incorporate lessons learned on the Pathfinder into their classrooms.

Joan Turner, a marine educator at Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Dauphin Island, Ala., will study bioluminescense, a natural phenomenon in which an animal or plant emits its own light. Turner teaches kindergarten through seniors.

"If you've ever been out on the water in the night and you see behind you in the wake this glowing trail, that's bioluminescense," Turner said.

She said the Navy studies the bioluminescense to protect submarines and other ships from "glowing and showing themselves to the enemy."

The U.S. Navy's seven Pathfinder ships are responsible for mapping the ocean floors around the world. When a ship hits ground or a submarine runs aground, the Pathfinder is sent out to map the area in a process similar to mowing the lawn, Jarrett said.

"A lot of the world's oceans have not been mapped," Jarrett said, adding that there are still "several hundred years worth of requirements to finish."

The teachers will work alongside the oceanographers and surveyors to learn how and why the data are collected, Jarrett said.

This year, participating teachers have come from Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Kansas and Idaho.

"When we can," Jarrett said, "we try to take teachers to sea and it does make a difference."

Reach Robert Shikina at rshikina@honoluluadvertiser.com.