BANGOR, Maine — A steady parade of local fourth-graders lined up along the bank of Kenduskeag Stream last week, each carrying a plastic cup that held precious cargo.
“We’re releasing our salmon because we had them for a long time,” Emma McNeil, a student at Mary Snow School in Bangor, said.
The students had been raising the salmon in a classroom tank since April 23, McNeil said, and it was important she and her classmates release those salmon fry as soon as possible.
“They’re losing the yolk that they eat, which is the only source of food that they have in the tank,” she said. “They have to go in and get leaves and stuff on the bottom of the pond.”
Students at Mary Snow School have participated in the Atlantic Salmon Federation’s Fish Friends program for eight years, according to Principal Michael Missbrenner. Each year, a new batch of fourth-graders takes over the task of raising the fish.
But the students aren’t just raising and releasing fish. They also are learning valuable lessons in a variety of different subjects while they study the fish.
“It really incorporates all of the different content areas,” teacher Renee Reilly said. “This is a Maine species that we study. It incorporates our Maine studies for social studies. Obviously it’s an ecology unit for science, so we talk about the habitat that it lives in, the life cycle, the food chain. And then it also incorporates language arts — we read several books about the life cycle, the food chain.”
The students also write journal entries about the process, their observations and their predictions as the eggs begin to develop.
Reilly said that in the beginning, there’s not much to see during weekly visits to the tank that holds the eggs. At that point, students are encouraged to predict what will happen next.
“If we aren’t seeing changes over the first several weeks, we’re making predictions: How many do you think are in the tank?” Reilly said.
“When we get them, most of them are in the egg stage. Then we watch them [reach the] eyed egg [stage]. [Students] can actually see the development of the salmon inside the egg, see the spine developing, see the eyes and the brain developing,” she said.
And the students have learned their lessons well.
“After a few years, [the fry] are supposed to turn into smolts,” student Genevieve Sychterz said. “And they’re supposed to go to the Atlantic Ocean.”
And after that, if they survive, they’ll return to Kenduskeag Stream — the water they’ll identify as their natal stream.
“[They’ll] probably be about that big,” Sychterz said, holding her hands a couple of feet apart.
That, they will — if they’re lucky.
About 58 students took part in the release of the salmon, but all 135 of the school’s fourth-graders participate in the project, according to Missbrenner. The tradition is one Mary Snow School students have learned to look forward to.
“This is a grade-level activity for all fourth-graders, and it ties directly to the curriculum,” Missbrenner said. “It’s really been a great hands-on learning experience for them.”
After the release, the students chosen to take part in the release were bused to Orland, where they visited the Craig Brook National Fish Hatchery and learned even more about Atlantic salmon.
But before that could happen, the students took turns carrying 115 salmon fry — one fry per cup, one cup per student — to the Kenduskeag Stream.
The students learned quickly there was a correct way to release the fish and an incorrect way.
“[We were told] to scoop them up and let them drain out gently,” fourth-grader Levi Cox explained. “Don’t just bop them into the water by turning the cup upside-down. [That way] they don’t fall and hurt themselves and die.”
Several students headed back for seconds and released more than one salmon.
Roman Johnson was among them, and he paid close attention to his fish after he let them swim free in the Kenduskeag.
“One went down in the sand, under a piece of wood,” Johnson said. “And one just swam away.”
And, the students hope, in a few years, maybe it will swim back to the same spot.
Either way, Reilly knows studying salmon has been important to her students.
“Some of these kids have never seen a fish, other than what’s served on their plate,” she said. “They’ve never gone fishing, and maybe have never gone out into the environment to see them live. And they’re having the experience to do that.”
