High school is a busy time to be a kid. When you're not in class or doing homework, you might be playing sports, immersing yourself in an after-school club, or playing your heart out at band rehearsal. If you're a member of Team pHFine Scale out of Carmel, CA, you're on a mission to save the ocean.
Jack Maughan gets to school at 7:20 a.m. for AP Chemistry. For the next eight hours, it's nothing but classes (with a break for lunch, of course). At 3:15pm, there might be a little time for homework before wrestling or water polo practice starts. On a water polo day, he gets home at 8:30pm and sets aside about 15 minutes to eat dinner before homework truly begins. Somewhere between 11:00pm and 1:00am, his head hits the pillow and Jack can finally surrender to sleep.
With a schedule like that, you'd think he’d spend his weekends goofing off—when in fact the opposite is true. Weekends are when friends and Team pHFine Scale members Ethan Kurteff, Benek Robertson, and Bridgett Maughan (Jack’s younger sister) get together to build, test, and perfect their pH sensor. "We generally start at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday," says Jack. The team takes its cues from a corkboard, where tasks that need to be completed by the end of the day or week are posted by Lisa Walder, Team pHFine Scale's project manager (and mom to the Maughans).
"I absolutely love the ocean," Jack says. "I spend pretty much the entire summer there: I surf, boogie board, spear fish, swim, and sit in a lifeguard tower for six hours every day. It's the best place to have fun." Ethan, pHFine Scale's calibration man, claims to be not quite coordinated enough to surf, but is an avid boogie boarder and snorkeler. "It's a magical, relaxing place to be," he says. The rest of the team shares a healthy respect, if not outright love, of the ocean they've spent so much of their lives growing up next to, and the realization that something fundamental about it is changing because of human activity is something they all find sobering.
