Wearing their swimsuits with masks and snorkels in hand, six Southwest Middle School students jumped into the Albert Lea High School pool.

Under the direction of Robert Peoble, who is a certified instructor with the Professional Association of Diving Instructors, the students first learned how to de-fog and clear their masks.

Peoble instructed the students to pay particular attention as he talked.

“Diving is really serious,” he said. “You can actually injure yourself if you’re not paying attention.”

Less than an hour later, the students were fitted with scuba gear and were already scuba diving in the deep end of the pool.

They had learned hand signals to use underwater and were submerged under the water for notable periods of time.

It was a diver discovery course taught as part of a day of exploration on Thursday for Southwest Middle School students.

On that day, students were able to take part in an activity of their choice, aside from the regular school day.

“I just wanted to do something fun, and this sounded like fun,” student Drew Steele said of the scuba diving class. “This is something I’ve always wanted to do.”

Steele said he thinks it is neat that the school lets the students do different things during the exploratory days. And then to top it off, that day there was also a scheduled early dismissal.

Principal Marsha Langseth said the school started the exploratory days about six years ago.

“It’s kind of part of the middle school philosophy to offer the students enrichment-type things that they might not have been able to do otherwise,” Langseth said.

Students can pick between activities such as scuba diving, ice fishing, snowshoeing, bowling, karaoke, watching a movie, playing chess or scrapbooking, to name a few of the activities.

The activities are organized by the teachers, who pick what they would like to oversee.

“It’s a fun way for our staff to connect with the kids in a little different setup,” Langseth said.

It was the first time for the scuba diving course.

Peoble, who has been diving since 1984, said he got certified as an instructor about three years ago to try to get more youth involved in the industry.

He worked with the Albert Lea Family Y on making the course a reality, and together, they approached Langseth to see if it was something they could try out.

“It’s a neat experience,” he said. “These kids seemed so excited.”

Teacher Penny Hagen, who was in charge of the ice fishing activity, said the exploratory day gave the students an opportunity to do fun things in Albert Lea and the surrounding area that they might not have done before.

Her group of 13 students left Southwest around 8:30 a.m. and arrived at St. Olaf Lake east of New Richland around 9 a.m. They stayed until after 11 a.m.

Hagen said a few of her husband’s friends donated their ice houses for a few hours so the kids were able to stay warm while they fished.

The students learned how to bait their own hooks and use a device to see if there was any fish activity below them.

“There’s one student who had never caught a fish before or been fishing,” Hagen said. “He caught one and that was awesome, and one young man even caught six.”

The kids caught crappies and sunfish.

Science teacher David Ware, who was with a group of students who went to the Myre Big Island State Park, helped students learn to cross country ski and snowshoe.

Ware said it was the first time most of the students had gone cross country skiing or snowshoeing.

“Exploratory days are, as the name implies, opportunities to explore new things,” he said. “Students gain the experience of trying activities they may not have tried before.”

Walking down the halls of Southwest and looking into the classrooms there were also other activities including knitting, poster design, notebook covering and T-shirt design.

The next exploratory day is scheduled for May.