Salmon in Schools: Connecting Kids and Salmon
Educational programming and field trips for schools in WRIA 9
Salmon in Schools is a powerful program to connect Washingtonians to their local salmon, and ensure that they get a strong start on their road to becoming salmon stewards. Through raising salmon eggs to the fry stage in their school, to exciting in-class lessons on salmon’s life, to a magical field trip to release the fish, students gain a life-long appreciation for these amazing fish.
Mid Sound focuses our program in South King County, supporting 9 schools in White Center, Auburn, Kent and Covington to implement this program. Over 200 students are engaged each year in the amazing journey of salmon throughout the stages of their life cycle.
From Eggs to Fry: Raising Salmon
During the first phase of the program, students have the opportunity to care for salmon in their very own school. They receive a tank and eggs, and keep them safe and fed as they go from eggs, to alevin, to fry. The entire school gets excited to see the eggs grow into small, adorable fish.
Mid Sound brings in tanks and eggs from a local hatchery, then hands it over to the students and teachers to care for. We teach them about feeding and cleaning the tank, helping them when they have questions, and sometimes making emergency trips to fix a troubled tank.
Class Lessons on Salmon Life Cycle
Being a special guest teacher in the classrooms allows us to spread our joy for salmon to the kids and their teachers. During 3 in-class lessons on the salmon life cycle, their food, and their habitat needs we build on the good teaching of the teachers and help connect salmon science to other learning in the classroom.
Magical Field Trips!
The program culminates in a magical Spring Release field trip. Kids get outside and do hands-on learning to solidify their knowledge about salmon, and celebrate these amazing fish as they return to their natal rivers.
Salmon Release Station!
Celebrate the job done raising these fry! Each kid gets to name a salmon, wish it well, and send it into its new river home.
Macroinvertabrates
Kids had hands-on exploration of the bugs that salmon eat. They also learn how to tell if the water is clean or polluted by what bugs they find!
Hooks and Ladders Game
What threats do salmon have to avoid during their trip to the ocean and back? Kids play a game in which they are a salmon. They have to avoid the predators, turbines and dams to make it back home to their home stream safely.
Join Us in Supporting Salmon in Schools
Donate
Donors and supporters like you are also key to making this happen. You can make sure that the legacy of salmon love, and salmon stewardship, lives on in the next generation by making a donation today!
Volunteer
Each year, we need volunteers to help fun the field trips and ensure that the magic happens. If you are interested in volunteering for a field trip, or to help keep one of the tanks clean and healthy for the fish, contact us and we’ll reach out to you before we start our next program! (Background checks required for all volunteers).
This program is only possible because the support of a number of partners. Environmental Education is notoriously hard to fund – but local partners have chipped in to support this effort, from small gifts to more significant grants. We are incredibly grateful for these partners for helping to spread the magic.
