WESTMINISTER, Calif. — A marine biologist has been bringing several struggling sea creatures into classrooms in Orange County to help grow the species and study them.

Brand new to Nancy Caruso’s Get Inspired program is pismo clams. Caruso said they were once abundant but are now rare to find on a beach in Southern California.

Students at Warner Middle School in Westminster are part of the first-ever effort to raise pismo clams in a classroom outside of their natural environment. The class has named their clams Stripey, Brown and Creamy.

Some schools in Orange County have also been helping to grow green abalone, which is federally listed as a “species of concern.”

For the past 11 years, Caruso has been surveying the coast for green abalone and growing them in classrooms. She has about 5,000 abalone that she’s been growing for the last eight years and has applied for a permit with the California Department of Fish & Wildlife to release them in OC this year.