Teachers use trout in education

NAZARETH, Pa. (AP) — They arrived in a cooler, appearing like tiny orange glass beads.

Except they had eyes — all 350 of them.

Raised from roe to fingerlings, the striped trout darting around a 55-gallon tank are the latest subjects of study making a splash in science class at Nazareth Area Middle School. There’s Ty, named after a pupil; Big Bertha, the cannibal of the group. And the rest of the survivors take on a more familiar name: Nemo.

The eighth-grade pupils who care for the brook and brown trout have a simple goal: To keep them alive — and eventually relocate them into a local cold-water stream.

“We hope they grow to live an exuberant and joyful life,” said Tyler Hallman, adding that he’s rooting for Ty, the fish named after him.

Teachers, though, have other goals in mind — namely incorporating a mix of lessons into the project. Each day when pupils monitor temperatures, check ammonia levels and derive a formula for feeding, they learn ecology, chemistry and math, said science teacher Tim Cunningham.

“Sometimes we teach and you don’t know if kids are seeing the connections between one subject and the next; here they can see that,” he said. “A simple lesson about water quality may teach them how sensitive living things are to their environment, but they’re also learning equations and formulas.”

Cunningham is one of 13 Pennsylvania teachers to win a $1,500 grant from Trout Unlimited, a national conservation group, and the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission to purchase the equipment needed to launch the program. Since the eggs arrived in December, the project has been a draw for the school’s pupils and teachers. Even the school’s technology department took an interest, erecting a Web camera in the classroom to provide an online view of the trout.

Eventually, though, Big Bertha, Ty and the Nemos will return to the wild.

In April, Cunningham is planning a field trip to nearby Jacobsburg State Park so pupils can watch as the trout are released into the Bushkill Creek or another cold-water stream.