Rockford — A fish tank in the vestibule just inside Lakes Elementary has caught the attention of students keen to see a batch of salmon grow from eggs into adults.
Though each one is less than an inch long, the salmon have been captivating kids since they were first brought to the school in November as part of the Salmon in the Classroom program through the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
“Every day when I get to school, they’re crowded around (the tank), just sitting and watching,” third-grade teacher Rachel Schirmann said of her students.
Schirmann is leading the program in its first year at Lakes, and while only third-graders are working directly with the salmon, the fish have become popular throughout the school.
“The whole building is really taking advantage of the situation and getting a chance to observe and connect and ask questions,” Schirmann said.
A couple times a week, Schirmann and the other third-grade teachers are devoting class time to observing and taking care of the fish, learning about their life cycles and documenting their growth.
Sometime in the spring, the students will release the salmon into an area waterway.
Learning About Life Cycles
The lessons have only been going on for a month or so, but students have already learned some surprising facts.
“They can have two heads!” exclaimed third-grader Isla Powis.
Isla marveled at how much the salmon can develop and mature in a short amount of time.
“They started off as eggs, and then, almost like three days later, they turned to sac fry and started floating on the bottom of the tank,” Isla said. “They could go up for a few seconds, but they’d just float back down.
“But (now), they can float for a little while.”
Classmate Rowan Garlock added: “They have a lot of different stages, and I didn’t know that they had, like, sacks on their bellies.”
He said the lessons with the salmon have been more interesting than his standard schoolwork because “we can actually look at stuff that’s real.”
Lillie Vogel is looking forward to releasing the salmon in the spring.
“I’m excited to release them because then I get to go on a field trip and I get to go to one of the lakes,” Lillie said.
Unexpected Benefits
For now, the salmon are still so small that most of the work is mostly limited to observation and monitoring. Students use journals to draw pictures of salmon at different life-cycle stages, and take notes on how they’re growing and changing.
‘Every day when I get to school, they’re crowded around (the tank), just sitting and watching.’
— Rachel Schirmann, third-grade teacher
But even with the work being predominantly hands-off at the moment, Schirmann says the learning is proving beneficial for students in unexpected ways.
“We’re seeing kids who maybe need some self-regulation support, or just need to have a reason to take a walk; it’s a really great opportunity for them to be doing something with a purpose as opposed to just wandering the halls,” she said.
Instruction also ties into social studies curriculum, as students learn about salmon being brought to the Great Lakes to offset the presence of the invasive sea lamprey, and how the abundance of salmon boosted the state’s food and fishing industries, giving the DNR more reasons to keep the population stable.
“We have been able to make so many cross-curricular connections that it’s been really amazing, and I’ve been really excited to see how that’s presenting this year,” Schirmann said.
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