As an instructor lifted a lobster out of a touch tank at Hole in the Wall Beach on a recent morning, a group of students that were huddled around the tank shrieked and backed away.

“A lobster!” they shouted, before returning to touch the crustacean that the instructor, Evan McOmber of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, was holding.

McOmber pointed out to the students the lobster's gills and explained to them how the lobster breathes.

The third grade students from East Lyme and Salem were learning lessons on their local environment and Long Island Sound at an annual field trip in Niantic intended to complement their science curriculum.

During the third "Not Just Another Day at the Beach" event on May 10, students visited stations on stormwater, recycling, soil, and plants and species. Groups of students played games, participated in activities, and listened to demonstrations at Hole in the Wall Beach and the Outdoor Stormwater Classroom at the beach's parking lot.

At a station on recycling, Rebecca Chapman, operations administrator and outreach coordinator for the Southeastern Connecticut Regional Resources Recovery Authority, led a third-grade class in a trivia game.

Chapman asked the students what the most picked up item was during the last international beach clean-up day. While plastic bags was a popular guess, Chapman said the answer was cigarette butts.

At another station, high-school students from the AP Environmental Class showed students a replica of a tiny community with homes, lawns and a gas station. They showed how substances  from activities — like washing cars — can make their way into a community's water supply.

Town Engineer Victor Benni, one of the event's organizers, took students around the outdoor classroom, showing them its different surfaces and detention ponds and describing what happens during a heavy rainstorm.

"We learned about plants and what damage people can do with their trash, oil, and chemicals," Hope Dowling, 9, said about the field trip. "We learned about the different types of animals that live in the Sound. We learned how fish can camouflage and protect themselves."

Diane Swan, a teacher and science coordinator at Niantic Center School and one of the event's organizers, said she hopes students learn how something that may seem insignificant can impact so many species, from plants to animals, and also affect Long Island Sound.

Swan said she began taking her students to the teachable outdoor classroom at the parking lot of Hole in the Wall Beach, after the outdoor classroom was built. She then collaborated with the late Public Works Director Mike Giannattasio and then Town Engineer Victor Benni, and the efforts eventually developed into a field day for students.

"It really grew and grew," she said.

East Lyme Public Schools, East Lyme's Engineering and Public Works Departments, the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, Save the River-Save the Hills, Inc., Niantic River Watershed Commission, and Southeastern Connecticut Regional Resources Recovery Authority all helped with the event.

Steven Kirsch, a third-grade teacher at Flanders Elementary School, said that if children start learning about the environment at a young age, they will have lifelong habits.

"They learn a responsibility for the world we live in and what they can do to make our planet healthier," he said.

k.drelich@theday.com