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CLAREMONT — Six students protesting development of open space chained themselves to cement-filled trash cans and blocked college administrators from their offices Monday. 

The students filled the trash cans with cement and attached the chains at 3:30 a.m., said Ruth Cusick, a member of their group, Students for the Field Station, and a sophomore at Scripps College, one of the Claremont Colleges. 

The seven-college consortium shares a 350-acre campus that includes 88 acres of open space, mostly coastal sage scrub habitat, known as the Bernard Field Station. 

A group called Friends of the Bernard Field Station dropped a lawsuit fighting the development last month after reaching a compromise with Claremont University Center and Keck Graduate Institute to preserve 45 acres of the field station for 50 years. 

That’s not good enough for Students for the Field Station, who are concerned that developing some of the land could ruin the entire ecosystem, Cusick said. 

The land, which students use in science classes, is a rare piece of Los Angeles County open space with native flora and fauna, she said. Parts of it are home to vernal pools that hold endangered fairy shrimp, she added. 

College officials were trying to convince students to unlock themselves and allow staff in to do the payroll work needed to pay employees. 

“We have told them we’re not willing to negotiate until they’re willing to negotiate about the Bernard Field Station,” Cusick said. “We’re not just going to unlock and let them do payroll.”