Your Yard is a Giant Sponge

Did you know your yard can act as a giant sponge and can help keep pollutants from entering waterways and harming living aquatic creatures like trout swimming in the streams?

It's true. Grass in your yard absorbs excess nutrients and contaminants. Plant roots and soil microbes can filter out contaminants like excess phosphorous, nitrogen, pet waste, toxic chemicals, motor fluids and trash before it runs off into the streams, rivers, and eventually in the lake. Aquatic plants and animals, like the trout we will soon be releasing into local streams, are dependent on clean water to survive. So anything we can do to protect what goes into the water system is important!

You can help your yard better support a safer, healthy watershed with these few at-home practices:

• Maximize your yards ability to catch and hold water- making sure roof gutters and dripping water make their way into the grass and not on concrete driveways or sidewalks

• Pick up pet waste from the yard and dispose of it in the trash

• Plant trees and shrubs around the yard! This will help hold soil in your yard better and increase the nutrients the soil needs to filter out pollutants.

• Pick up trash out of your yard that could enter the storm drain and contaminate waterways

As we think about our trout eventually swimming around in local streams, it's important to start thinking about how we can be a part of protecting their habitat by ensuring they have healthy water to live in!

Cannibals lurking!

Our trout (and students) are beginning to discover, it's survival of the fittest out there!  

This hungry brookie has been dubbed "Chicken Nugget" by Mrs. Tilsen's class at Northeast Elementary.   

 

Water Testing is Key!

At this point in the year, our classroom trout have successfully graduated from eggs to alevin to the fry stage, or 'Parr' stage of their lives.  Can you see the Parr Marks on these Lansing Elementary brook trout?

Over the past month, we've seen that our trout can hunt and eat other small creatures, like Daphnia... or smaller trout.  They are always hungry, and ready to do some serious growing, but it is important to stick to a careful feeding plan.  You'll know if you are being a little too generous with the trout food when you conduct regular water testing.  If those Nitrogen levels (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) are creeping up, you need to cut back.

This is a great time to engage your students is regular water testing, and growth charting, if you haven't already done so.  We have a complete set of instructional videos on water testing procedures for teachers and students!  Each is 3 minutes long.  All are available on the "Tech Support" page.