FISH IN SCHOOL: How Kids Are Helping Trout
Do fish go to school? Sometimes they do. With the help of local fish hatcheries, students and teachers around the United States are giving trout a strong start on their lives in the wild. Follow along as classrooms receive steelhead trout eggs, watch them hatch and develop into fry, and finally release their trout into a nearby river. In the process the students learn about the biology and life cycle of steelhead, the status of the fish in the wild, and the role of fish hatcheries in raising and releasing steelhead.
Setting up your own aquarium.
You can set up your own aquarium at home.
I never know when I’m going to get an idea for a book. In the fall of 2024 I was doing author visits at schools in Northern California as part of the bi-annual Humboldt County Children’s Author Festival. After my presentation in one of the classrooms, the teacher mentioned that she and her students raise steelhead trout every spring and then release them in a local river. It was part of their science curriculum. I have written many science books for children, including books about raising chicks and butterflies, but had never written about raising fish. This sounded like the perfect new book project for me. When I asked the teacher if she was willing to work with me on this project, she was enthusiastic.
I learned as much as I could by reading articles and watching videos online. I corresponded by phone and email with the teacher whose class I would be writing about. And I talked with the Humboldt County Classroom Aquarium Education Program coordinator. He oversees all the schools in the district that raise fish in the classroom. Onsite visits to two fish hatcheries were also part of my research process.
I needed to observe the students as they participated in the trout in the classroom experience both so I could write about it and also to document it with photographs. I live in Southern California so I had to plan several trips to Humboldt County. My first trip was timed to be there when the fish were spawning at the hatchery and the eggs were delivered to the schools. My last trip was at the end of April when the students released their fish into the river. I took thousands of photos. The challenge is always to choose just the right ones for the book!
Steelhead are excellent long-distance swimmers. I learned that a steelhead trout hatched in a California stream may swim as far north as Alaska after migrating to the sea. When it returns to its hatching place, it is able to recognize it by the smell!