Okay, I know you’re getting tired reading about my Trout In the Classroom project at White Mountain Elementary in Ruidoso, but I have a really great story about my checkup on the school last week.
My wife and I were planning to drive up to Ruidoso for the day last Friday to see if we could help with anything and to pick out a date when the fish might be released from the aquarium in the third-grade classroom of teacher Michelle Thurston. (Under the Trout Unlimited Trout In the Classroom program, students raise fish in an aquarium in their classroom, then release them at the end of the semester in a nearby stream or lake.)
Before we left, I got a message from another teacher, Rachel Lutterman (known by her peers as the “Trout Queen”), that they had somehow misplaced or lost the two larger sizes of trout food that was needed immediately for the now inch-long rainbows darting around the tank. It’s a very specific food, and I was pretty sure goldfish chow from PetCo wouldn’t work.
Then I remembered that the Mescalero Apache Tribe has had a trout fish hatchery for years and it was on my route from Las Cruces to Ruidoso. I’d heard that tribal fisheries programs often operated at arms length from state and federal fish agencies, but I thought I’d give the hatchery a call to see if they could spare some size two and size three trout chow.
To my great pleasure, the people at the Mescalero hatchery were eager to help out with the problem in getting food for the fish in Ruidoso. They agreed to let me have a small bag of the second and third size of trout chow that I could pick up on the drive to Ruidoso. When I got there, the two individuals I dealt with were extremely helpful and supportive. They even gave me some stickers to give to the students at White Mountain Elementary and urged me to invite the students for a tour of the facility in the future.
The two helpful individuals were Tori Marden, assistant manager of the facility, and Robert Morgan, administrative assistant. It was really rewarding to have such great cooperation between our organization, Trout Unlimited, and the Mescalero Tribal Fish Hatchery.
Next, it was on to Ruidoso, where we got to school just at the end of the school day with the appropriate trout food ready to go into the tank before the weekend.
Before we headed home, we got to take a look at what the third graders have done during the Trout In the Classroom project. Their work is pretty amazing. There’s an entire wall in the school dedicated to the project, shown below, that shows their artwork, some stories they wrote about trout and a timeline for development of the fish.
It was also fun to read the students’ stories they wrote about what they thought it would like to be a trout. One of the kids was conflicted about the matter, saying he liked to eat trout, but obviously didn’t want to be someone’s meal. Another wondered what it would be to be like swimming in the tank with weird creatures staring at you all day. And another thought she would find it entertaining to play in bubbles in the tank that are formed by the aerator.
Although the one of the teachers said they would avoid giving the fish names “because they’re not pets,” some names have come up. Among them, “The Big Kahuna,” for its large size, “Big Eyes,” because of its oversized eyes and “Baby Shark,” because it seems to be constantly nipping at some of the other fish in the tank.
As one of the kids’ stories read:
“Hi, my name is Baby Shark. I got this name because I started biting my cusins (sic) and sisters botums (sic). (Because I am the king of the Trout, or at least I was for about two seconds.)”
And for anyone who may be worried about what’s going on in public schools these days, you would feel very encouraged by the enthusiasm of the six third-grade teachers who took on this project. They’ve done a great job in teaching kids about fish, the environment and taking responsibility. I would have been proud to have my own kids in their classrooms.
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