The Seabeck Salmon Team at Nick's Lagoon.
Here in Washington State there is a project called Salmon in the Classroom. Calling it Salmon IN the Classroom should be a tip off, a loud and clear message that this is not a good idea. I've been opposed to it since its inception, both as a biologist and as a teacher. My main concerns are that fish like salmon have no business spending time indoors. They were truly born to be wild. Learn a little about wild salmon ecology and you'll know that salmon in classrooms are started out as eggs stripped from hatchery fish, placed in tanks, taken to schools, raised for a while, then released into a stream. Typically, the stream they are released into is not their parent stream. Worse yet, the stream might be many watersheds away from the natal stream.
Often carrying fungal diseases into the stream after life in an aquarium, the salmon are let go with possible lethal effects on fish living in the receiving waters.
I do agree with the original thought behind this project. It is a wonderful notion to get kids excited about salmon. Letting them see fish develop from egg to kid salmon is a good thing.
My objection centers mainly on the fact that a far more exciting alternative exists throughout salmon country. I've not wanted to simply voice my opposition without working hard to see that kids take advantage of the alternative. Here are a couple of examples based on salmon streams, one on trout streams, and a couple related examples of good watershed teachings on midwestern streams, far from salmon waters.
I did a one day author visit at Seabeck Elementary in Seabeck, Washington about ten years ago. I showed slides and talked with the kids about water projects I'd gotten involved with in Ohio. A mom in the audience came up to me after the presentation and we talked a bit. She got excited about "doing something with the kids".
I asked if they ever took the kids to nearby Seabeck Creek. No. But they did raise salmon in the classroom, hatchery fish they released each year at a bridge crossing.
Long story very short, we started taking the kids to the stream about once a week and the mom and many other moms and dads started an after school "Salmon Team" somewhat like soccer or baseball. The kids showed up, but had to try out for the team. They also had to share what they learned with their classmates the day after our adventures in Seabeck Creek.
After a year of sampling salmon in Seabeck Creek, the kids became local experts and soon shared their knowledge at workshops, water celebrations, and salmon conservation group meetings. We started wandering away from Seabeck Creek during the second or third year of study and one of the kids and I stumbled on a small estuary. It was an enclosed lagoon fed by five springfed streams. I did a little research and discovered that virtually nothing was known about the largest of the streams and nothing at all was known about the smallest four. The lagoon itself was soon found to be a rearing place for juvenile salmon and I named it Nick's Lagoon after the boy who first discovered the beautiful little piece of water.
We started focusing a lot of attention on the lagoon and streams, naming each for kids in the Salmon Team. There was Muddy Marc Creek for the kid who got wet quicker and muddier faster than any I've ever worked with. Joe's Creek is a short run stream named for one of the best salmon finding kids around.
We carefully chronicled our findings, especially after discovering that chinook salmon swam into the lagoon from other streams, spending time there even though the adults did not visit its waters. This made the place highly valuable for many reasons. Juvenile rearing habitat is precious these days due to loss of habitat. Chinook are threatened species too. So, when the entire property surrounding the lagoon was listed for sale, we took action.
Teaming with the Trust for Public Land, Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe, and Kitsap County Parks, we raised the funds to purchase the property. This is all with thanks to the Seabeck Salmon Team. They could have sat back in the classroom and stared at fish in a tank, but their long road to saving a valuable habitat became an environmental award winning project. Nick's Lagoon is now preserved as a natural area park managed by the county and watched over by the kids and families who protected it.
More recently, I visited Breidablik Elementary, a school just north of Seabeck and a school (not the same building) my grandmother attended in the early 1900s. They too had a salmon in the classroom project and would place the fish in Jump Off Joe Creek, a stream that runs past the school and into nearby Hood Canal.
Learning about Nick's Lagoon and a little about salmon ecology, students and teachers at Breidablik started wondering what to do with their fish in the aquarium. they also started planning new projects - projects that would leave the salmon in the wild and take the kids OUT of the classroom.
In spring of 2009 they released their salmon in a more appropriate location within the watershed of the hatchery of origin. This was in Puget Sound, not Hood Canal. We also spent a day netting Jump Off Joe Creek and the shallows of Hood Canal at its mouth. Way too much fun, the kids soon became expert at handling the seine and at identifying fish.
We discoverd that Jump Off Joe already had a nice population of a small salmon most commonly called Cutthroat Trout. There is a good chance the cutthroat would have loved to see the salmon in the classroom dumped into their creek since cutthroat are predators of juvenile fish. Chances are good that the stream is too small to support other salmon species, but time will tell as we get to know the creek better by visiting it on a regular schedule, just as we did at Nick's Lagoon.
Any trout fisher will tell you that the Snake River is pretty much heaven. I get to fish the river fairly often, especially when visiting Wilson Elementary in Wilson, Wyoming. On my first author stop we took the fifth graders down to the big river and netted along side channels and along braids where it was safe to be in water with kids dragging a seine.
We worked on a Big Book (see my website) during that time and talked about doing more with the kids outside. The netting experience was what inspired our next adventure and offers a wonderful example for many schools around the country.
There's a tiny creek within walking distance of the school. Having the Snake River nearby more or less makes this piece of water invisible to anyone. Anyone, that is, other than a kid.
We visited this tiny Kid Creek with all the kids, netting with seine and hand held dip nets. The result? Inspired writing and art and a wealth of new knowledge about the stream, its history, and its future. The local land trust is now looking into ways of treating the stream and for sure, Wilson has found an outdoor learning lab right in their own backyard.
I can say that much of what I've done and will do with kids on waters all started with school visits in Ohio. I've taken several thousand kids seining in the Scioto, Darby, and other streams as well as into many ponds. The best of these projects is now connecting schools as we attempt to help kids see the connections in the Scioto/Ohio River Watershed.
Kids at Wyandot Elementary and St Brigid, both in Dublin have been doing some of the most creative watershed work. We started by seining in ponds on both school grounds. After a few years of documenting fish, invertebrates, and water quality in these headwater ponds, we took an ambitious approach in the spring of 2009.
Older kids can cover more ground than little ones and middle schoolers at St Brigid were up to the task of following a tributary to Indian Run Creek, itself a tributary to the Scioto. We followed the little creek, netting all the way, troubled by a lack of water and an abundance of litter. But we eventually traced the path of the creek all the way to its connection with Indian Run. And when we did, we looked upstream and there, in plain view was Wyandot Elementary School! We had followed the water and connected the dots to a partnering school.
Now, the two schools can compare notes on fish, water quality, and the many art and writing projects they have done related to the stream studies. Better yet, they can move on up and downstream to find ways of improving the water quality and connect with other schools in their watershed.
Each of the examples are at schools with streams within walking distance of the building. I'm often asked what to do during a school visit and I invariably ask if a stream flows nearby. Thanks to the examples of schools like Wilson, Wyandot, Breidablik, St Brigid, and others, I can point to some great ways schools use the experience. I know teachers take this learning back into the classroom. My job is to take the kids OUT of the classroom and definitely, to leave the salmon where they belong --- in a stream where we can watch over their well being.
