Copper River Watershed Project is excited to support interested teachers in the watershed in setting up a tank to raise salmon in their classroom. This program is permitted by the Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADFG), and provides an opportunity to get up close and personal with the early life stages of salmon that are usually out of sight (and out of mind) under gravel, ice, and snow.
The opportunity to care for these fragile life stages help to build personal connections to the fish, which are lovingly named by students over the course of the project. It also reminds students of the delicate lives incubating in the streams around them, ideally inspiring them to be extra careful when moving in and around spawning habitat.
In the spring, the salmon are released into a location approved by ADFG that will have the least impact on wild salmon populations. Students take time to study the habitat where their fish will now swim free, evaluating the food, competition, predators, and water quality in their fishes’ new home. This experience continues to build strong connections between students and salmon and the habitat that supports them both.
We’d like to give a big shout-out to the “salmon stork,” a.k.a Robin Mayo from Wrangell Institute for Science and Environment (WISE), a Salmon in the Classroom partner.
Someone from the Valdez Fishery Development Association drove the eggs up from the hatchery to the junction of the Edgerton and Richardson Highways. From there, Robin delivered them to three school tanks over the course of the day – Kenny Lake School, Glennallen School, and Upstream Learning.
Thanks, Robin, for working hard to get the salmon eggs delivered!
Photos of Glennallen & Upstream Learning tanks courtesy of Robin Mayo
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Salmon Eggs Arrive at Kenny Lake School!!
The “salmon stork,” a.k.a Robin Mayo from Wrangell Institute for Science and Environment (WISE) delivered salmon eggs to teacher Jennifer Hodge’s class, and wow were they excited!
You can check out the Kenny Lake school tank webcam here:
https://video.nest.com/live/9D5a8I3FSx
And thank you to all of our Salmon in the Classroom partners who help make this program possible: Wrangell Institute for Science and Environment (WISE), Valdez Fisheries Development Assoc. Inc., Alaska Department of Fish and Game – Official, and Bureau of Land Management – Alaska.
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