I found a school of them (pardon the pun) at White Mountain Elementary in Ruidoso last Friday. They’re excited and ready to watch tiny trout hatch and grow in their classroom this coming spring semester and then be transplanted as fingerlings into rivers or lakes near them in the Lincoln National Forest.
Here’s what’s happening:
Because of my lifelong interest in fly fishing and long-time membership in Trout Unlimited (TU), I’m helping head up a project by TU called “Trout in the Classroom” at a school in my alma mater in Ruidoso. (Well actually, my elementary school back in the Dark Ages when I attended was only named Ruidoso Elementary and later Nob Hill Elementary that’s since been torn down, but that’s beside the point.)
My good friend Ken (from Albuquerque) and I helped set up the fish tank in the third-grade classroom of teacher Michelle Thurston at White Mountain Elementary. It was a Friday, the first snowstorm of the season, a couple of strange men setting up weird equipment in the classroom and a hot cocoa award event, so you could expect the kids to be especially wild (I actually liked that). But all of the kids seemed really interested in the program. Ken and I will be back in a few weeks to get the equipment fully prepared and then I will be back in early January to bring about 35 rainbow trout fry or eggs from a nearby hatchery in Mescalero to put in the tank. The project will be shared among all four third grade classes at White Mountain Elementary. Michelle is exactly the kind of enthusiastic teacher that you need to spearhead the project, and I know she’ll do a great job.
The program provides teachers in third and fourth grades with an opportunity to raise trout either as eggs or as fry in a 55-gallon tank in the classroom and watch them grow into fish that can be transplanted into local waters. Students record data on such things as water temperature, Ph balance of the water, feeding schedules and estimated growth during the four months they’ll have the fish swimming around in their classroom tank. Toward the end of the semester, the students will take a field trip to a local fresh cold water river or lake to release the trout into the wild.
I think it will be similar to FFA or 4H kids who raise animals for the county fair, then sell them at auction to a bidder who will likely turn them into tomorrow’s steak, bacon or chicken nuggets. The fish that will be raised at White Mountain Elementary may eventually be caught by local anglers and consumed. Like a lot of the kids who raise livestock and see them sold at the fair, I suspect there will be tears when the tiny fish (many of whom may be named) will be released back into the wild for an uncertain future.
The point of the project is to teach kids about responsibility of caring for living things and the importance and protection of clean, cold-water streams and lakes in our country. My hope is that they will become fishermen and fisherwomen (like my own wife, son. daughter and grandchildren) and appreciate the great outdoors as much as my wife and I have over the years.
I’ll keep you updated over the coming months. I think it will be a fun project.
It’s a great program, and if you’d like to learn more go to this website:
aero-cordero.com 