Overview of Trout in the Classroom Program 2023-24

Overview of Trout in the Classroom Program 2023-24

Fall 2023 TIC Teacher Workshop

Discover Cayuga Lake coordinates over 20 schools throughout Tompkins County and surrounding counties participating in the Finger Lakes Trout in the Classroom Program. The program enables students to raise trout in tanks in their classrooms from October- May. Students learn to care for their trout and learn about streams through science, art and language. Just as they learn to take care of their trout, we hope students will continue to care for their newly adopted streams.

• October/November: Eggs arrive 

• November-April: Care for your trout, observe and experiment

• Trout Stages:

• Eggs

• Alevin

• Fry

• Fingerling (when released)

• Adults

• April/May: Trout release field trip

Discover Cayuga Lake provides 5 presentations throughout the Trout in the Classroom Program. Mentors are assigned to schools in order to educate classes on their trout and stream ecology while supporting classes as they help keep trout healthy and thriving. Katie Barnhill will oversee the FLX TIC Program, alongside other class mentors including Bill Foster, April Taylor and Astrid Jirka. You can schedule your presentations with us through our 2023-24 scheduling spreadsheet.

 

The 5 presentations include:

• Visit #1: November: Kick-Off Program (Browns)/ Brooks: Overview of trout life cycle, understanding the parallel connection between hatchery egg retrieval and natural spawning process happening outside right now. 
• Main Objective: Help students feel confident in raising trout by answering questions about life cycle, caring for trout and what to expect throughout the year.
• Activity: Could view eggs up-close under microscope/in petri dish at table if time allows. 
• Further Activity: 
• From Jen Wilke’s class at Caroline Elementary- Use scientific illustration to track the trout’s growth across the year 
• From Lauren Hamilton’s class at Newfield Middle School- Trout Life Cycle Webquest using Wild Trout Trust website
• From Lauren Hamilton’s class at Newfield Middle School- Elements of an Aquarium Ecosystem

 

• Visit #2: December: Color & Adaptations: Trout are equipped to survive in the wild through adaptation. Trout can change their appearance in order to camouflage within their stream habitat. Learn the different types of camouflage including: Concealing, Disruptive & Countershading.
• Main Objective: We can tell a lot about fish by observing their habitat, also we can learn a lot about habitat by observing fish.
• Activity: Students imagine a place and a stream and then illustrate a trout using elements of camouflage to blend in with its habitat. Students share their trout illustrations with class. The class can try to guess the features of the trout’s habitat based on the camouflage features illustrated on the trout.
• Further Activity: Trout Survival Game

 

• Visit #3: January: Live Food Experiment with Daphnia: Students use the scientific method to answer the question, “Do you think your trout will be able to catch and eat live food when they are released into the stream?” Students will learn about the live food used in the experiment, daphnia, by first learning about the aquatic food web and the important role of zooplankton. Then students will test how many daphnia their trout eat in a given amount of time. They will discuss results of their experiment, revisit research questions and draw conclusions about whether their trout will eat live food and survive in streams.
• Main Objective: Use the scientific method to draw conclusions about the trout’s ability to survive when released into a wild stream.
• Activity: Live food experiment. Students will be given a research question, “Will my trout eat live food,” and go through the scientific method to conduct hypotheses, test with an experiment, analyze results and draw conclusions. The experiment includes feeding daphnia to the trout with a beaker on their desk. Groups of students will record how many trout are eaten every minute for a 4 or 5-minute span of time.
• Further Activity: Students can plot data from their live food experiment, classes could add all of their data together with a sum of all team results, and analyze/draw conclusions about research questions from class data. This could also be compared/shared with other classes/schools.

 

• Visit #4: February: Pollution Prevention and Watershed Awareness: Students identify watershed pollution problems by learning about the water cycle and how pollutants can move through and impact aquatic plants, animals and humans in a watershed.
• Main Objective: Understand how water moves through a watershed and learn how pollutants can enter a watershed and harm aquatic life, the environment and humans.
• Activity: Students being school pollutant detectives, by selecting a pollutant topic of interest and conducting a survey around their school. Student groups will collect data about potential pollutant problems in their school, research how the pollutant can make its way into a watershed and how it can harm aquatic life, the environment and humans. Students will begin seeing themselves as a part of the solution as the group brainstorms ways they can educate classmates through projects that serve to persuade, entertain or inform their audience.
• Further Activity: Follow through with enacting a solution in their school, based on student group’s pollution solution project

• Visit # 5: March/April: Stream Ecology: Students brainstorm about indicators of a healthy stream and learn about insect life cycles and the stream energy web before conducting a live macroinvertebrate experiment. In the experiment, students will assess the health of a stream using a stream sample brought into the class containing live macroinvertebrate samples. Student groups will collect and identify insects and then score the stream based on the diversity of macroinvertebrates found. 
• Main Objective: Learn about food webs and sensitive creatures. Use stream invertebrates indicators to determine the health of a stream.
• Activity: Student groups will be given a container with a fresh stream sample. They will collect a diverse sample of macroinvertebrates in an ice cube tray and work together to identify the insects they collected. The class will come together with their data to score the stream's health based on biodiversity and identified insect’s sensitivity to pollution. This will prepare students to use insects as indicators to assess the health of the stream when they release their trout. 

• May: Trout Release Field Trip: Students will take a field trip to a nearby selected stream to release their trout. They will first participate in activities to assess the health of the stream before the release, including collecting a macroinvertebrate sample, taking an intentional and observational stream hike, and conducting a trash clean-up around the stream. A journal or illustration activity could also take the place of a trash clean-up if not applicable. 
• Main Objective: Students will have made a connection with their trout and learned about the conditions needed for the trout to survive in a stream. The hope is students will walk away wanting to continue to care for their trout by caring for the stream it now lives in and its surrounding environment and watershed.
• Activity: Stream hike, macroinvertebrate sampling, trash clean-up, journal or illustration activity, group trout release.

Discussion Questions:

• How can we make these core presentations more relevant to your classes?
• How can we maximize the value of each presentation?
• Any questions or ideas about ways to further engage with these presentations? Any obstacles?
• Experienced TIC teachers- What do you wish you knew when you first started the TIC program?

Further Curriculum Dive:

• FLX Trout in the Classroom Blog
• Trout Unlimited Trout in the Classroom National Website: Lessons for STEM Learning, Visual and Language Arts, Field Days and Activities
• TIC Partner Resources

How Can Climate Change Effect Our Trout?

With the help of our pals at the US Fish & Wildlife Office in Cortland, NY (Big thanks Justin and Gian!), we delivered BROOK TROUT eggs to nine aquariums at Dryden High School, Dryden Elementary School, Northeast & Caroline Elementary Schools (Ithaca, NY), Lehman Alternative School and Elizabeth Ann Clune Montessori school on Thursday, November 16.

The eggs in your aquariums are (or were) less than 1/4 inch in diameter, but even so, it was easy to make out two black dots in each- the eyes of the tiny fish inside!   These eggs were "eyed up", as the shells had already begun to thin and soften in preparation for hatching.  The big question on everyone's mind was, "how long will that take?" 

Suzanne Scheuring's students at Dryden High School wondered if there was a scientific way to predict when the eggs would hatch.  So, we put the question to Ryan Diehl, the hatchery manager at SUNY Morrisville's hatchery who provided our brook trout eggs.  He confirmed that, yes, you can predict the time between egg spawning (when the eggs are released and fertilized) and egg hatch.  

It is almost entirely dependent on the temperature of the water!

Ryan shared this table, from the US Fish & Wildlife Service's Fish Hatchery Management Handbook (1982), that provides information for both brook trout and brown trout.

We can see that for BROOK TROUT, the period from spawning (egg fertilization) to hatch is 144 days if the water averages 35 degrees F, but only 44 days if the water averages 50 degrees F.   Ryan shared that our eggs were spawned on October 12.  So, if we keep our aquarium temperatures close to 50 degrees, they should hatch about 44 days later - Nov. 25 or 26, just in time for Thanksgiving Break unfortunately!   Let's find out if they have hatched when classes return after the break!

Of course, in the "real world" outside, stream temperatures are much colder, as winter approaches, and are likely to be closer to 35 degrees than 50 degrees.  So brook trout eggs in a natural stream might not hatch for another 100 days under "typical" winter conditions.  That could be mid-February, which is actually perfect timing.

Our trout are born with a built-in energy supply, called a "yolk sack", that can nourish them for quite some time.  This is a perfect adaptation for being born in the middle of winter, when food is scarce.   If all goes according to nature's plan, by the time the yolk sack is used up, spring will have arrived and food will be plentiful for our hungry young trout.

Now that we know a bit about what effects the development of our trout eggs, what would happen if climate change caused our streams to become warmer throughout the year?   

Here's an example:  If average winter stream temperatures rise just a few degrees, to an average of  40F, for instance, our trout could be born in December, rather than February.  The yolk sack is not a bottomless buffet, however, and only will last so long.  What could happen to our trout? 

You can do a little of your sleuthing, to find out if climate change is already impacting our local trout habitat, or your favorite stream, by heading over to the Community Science Institute's amazing Water Quality Dataset that shows data collected by volunteers over the past ten or more years.  Just select your favorite stream and have a look!  

A Trip to the Hatchery!

We recently kicked off the 2023-2024 Eastern Finger Lakes Trout in the Classroom program with field trips to collect brown trout eggs at the NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) state hatchery in Bath NY. Students from South Seneca Elementary visited the hatchery on Friday, Nov. 3 and students from Beverly J. Martin Elementary in Ithaca visited on Monday, Nov. 6.

Chuck, one of our super-knowledgeable hatchery guides starts off the hatchery tour....

Bill and Astrid help students get ready to collect trout eggs in the hatch-house!

Students collected sets of about 120 eggs (transferred to mason jars for transport) for 16 schools that will be raising brown trout this year!  All together, they collected nearly 2000 eggs!

It was a busy day for our brown trout, as many actually hatched on the way  to their new classroom environments.  Just imagine popping out of your egg, moving to a new home, and having your first class, all in just a couple hours! 

Of course, not all the fish at the hatchery are quite so small.  Students got to feed these hungry yearlings that will soon be releases to local streams.

Stay tuned to learn what happens next!