Wednesday, 8 January 2014

Salmonoids in the Classroom!

I'm sure many of the students have come home and shared this news already - but next week we will have some new arrivals joining our classroom - SALMON! We will be recieving a batch of salmon eggs that we will watch grow through the different stages of their life cycle. First thing Monday we began learning about salmon and habitats and some of the students went home and did some BONUS homework - finding an picture (online) or drawing a habitat for a salmon. We need to make sure that our tank has everything we need for our salmon to hatch and grow - a redd for our alevin to hide in, nice cool water so they don't grow too quickly and a backdrop complete with all their habitat surroundings so they don't feel homesick :) Tomorrow we will be working on drawing our own backdrop for the salmon, complete with all the things that we might see in their habitat in the wild!

Through the next few months we will be taking care of the Coho salmon and monitoring them as they go through their life cycle - from eggs, to eyed eggs, to alevins, to fry... and will eventually be releasing them back into the river - if all goes as planned of course! We're hoping that we have a successful year with the salmon, however there have been times when the salmon have not made it and I have warned the students that we may have a few eggs and babies die through the process. Let's hope that this is a successful and fun learning experience!

Students can feel free to read up on salmon in books from the library (there are some displayed in our classroom too!) or on the internet as we monitor the salmon and learn about habitats of other animals/species too!

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