Things are a bit fishy at Indian Mills Memorial School.
That’s because students are raising trout.
Seventh-grade science teacher Steven Shultz said he received 300 fertilized trout eggs at the beginning of October from a hatchery in North Jersey. They were placed in a fish tank housed in the school library.
Shultz said the water temperature has to be below 55-degrees Fahrenheit and his project is part of a cold-water conservation program.
The state has funded the program and the Shamong Foundation has picked up the tab for additional equipment.
Shultz said the idea for putting a camera on the tank came from a similar one on an eagles’ nest. Soon students will be able to login from home and see the trout grow in the tank.
He said the pilot program has gotten a good response.
Shultz also said the survival rate from eggs is usually 5 percent, meaning only 15 of the 300 will make it. Right now, the tank has about 20 trout.
He said he refers to the trout when talking about cells and organisms in his life science class.
That instruction includes evolution and Darwinism.
For example, there’s one trout that’s having problems swimming.
“The kids will be like ‘help it, help it!’” Shultz said. “I have to remind them that’s nature. You have to let what happens happen. You’re teaching kids cold-water conservation, how organisms grow and live.”
As many as 30 students will release the trout on May 22 in Jackson.
“That’s the whole goal of the program — to raise and release trout,” Shultz said.
He has 125 kids in his classes and the real challenge is getting them all involved in the project, to be a part of it first-hand.
And Shultz said the reward comes from seeing the fish’s progress in the tank. He and students have gone from picking out dead eggs to watching the stages of life.
“They’re getting pretty big and that’s pretty cool,” Shultz said of the trout. “You’re talking a life process in three months. You’re seeing an egg to a decent sized little fish.”
He said he hopes kids visit the tank in the library and become curious.
There is a cold-water conservation school, which is a collaborative effort between the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Division of Fish and Wildlife and the State Council of Trout Unlimited. The school allows students to spend four days in the heart of trout country to explore cold-water habitats through conservation-related activities.
The goal of the school is to foster a knowledge and appreciation of cold- water habitats using a variety of hands-on activities and interactive learning methods.
The cold-water conservation school gives students the hands-on experience and knowledge about how to care for the cold-water habitat that trout and other wildlife need for survival.
