Growing future conservationists

Trout in the Classroom comes to Powell Middle School

Posted 1/14/25

A 55 gallon tank sits in the middle of Life Skills Lite teacher Michelle Giltner’s classroom with all the necessary filters, heaters and equipment turned on and nothing in it. Or so it seems.

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Growing future conservationists

Trout in the Classroom comes to Powell Middle School

Posted

A 55 gallon tank sits in the middle of Life Skills Lite teacher Michelle Giltner’s classroom with all the necessary filters, heaters and equipment turned on and nothing in it. Or so it seems.

At the top of the tank a mesh basket protects about 150 rainbow trout eggs, not yet recognizable as young trout. The eggs will be nurtured and guided by Powell Middle’s special education students from Giltner’s Life Skill Lite classroom and Hartly Washington’s Life Skills students until the fish are released as fingerlings into Homesteader Pond this spring.

The eggs were delivered carefully wrapped and in a small plastic container on Jan. 6 by Kathy Crofts, a member of the East Yellowstone Trout Unlimited board and Trout in the Classroom coordinator for her area.

“I see the kids start thinking about the fact that, ‘Hey, we raised these fish and we put them out here, so maybe we should protect our cold water fisheries, because I have a pony in the rodeo,’” Crofts said, adding “So they're at this very young age, hopefully motivated to look into conservation, because they have a buy in on it.”

Alongside promoting conservation, the project also provides classrooms the opportunities to implement STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) learning into classrooms.

“It's about getting to see the life cycle, and this will be something that they'll remember forever,” Giltner said. “You know, “Remember when we raised rainbow trout with Miss G in the middle school?’”

The classes are not following a specific lesson plan but they will be incorporating Trout in the Classroom activities including art and science projects as well as learning about the trout habitats, Giltner said.

Now they have to keep the trout alive, Giltner joked.

Student Noah MacDonald, who has fished for trout, blue gill and sunfish, is “happy to see the lifecycle” he said, adding that the eggs will go from little to bigger fish.

He will also go fish for them after the release.

Noah’s opinion is shared by most of his class, except he’s the only one excited about every aspect, including pH testing, which classmate Ky Nuss said is boring.

He’s still excited about the project, “because I’ve never had fish in a classroom before.”

    

30-year-old project gains traction in Wyoming

The unique project is part of Trout in the Classroom, which has been taking place nationally for over 30 years, according to the Trout in the Classroom website, and has been in Wyoming for about five years, said Jim Hissong, the National Leadership Council representative for Wyoming’s Trout Unlimited Council. But for the first couple of years only about 10 schools in Wyoming participated. For the past two years, Trout Unlimited and Game and Fish have partnered, allocating a total of
roughly $150,000 to supply classrooms with equipment for the project. The cost of equipment is $1,500 for each classroom and the annual cost of the program is roughly $200 per classroom, according to Game and Fish’s webpage.

This year 70 Wyoming schools are raising eggs, said Frances Schaetz, Game and Fish’s Trout in the Classroom Coordinator. Additionally, 12 Wind River Reservation classrooms have signed onto the project.

Game and Fish has multiple roles in Trout in the classroom, Schaetz said, such as providing funding, alongside Trout Unlimited, as well as the trout eggs. Game and Fish biologists also facilitate the release of the trout into places like Homesteader Pond through a specialized permit that allows the agency to release the fish into approved waterways in the state.

Game and Fish also provides support to teachers by providing curriculum “emphasizing aquatic ecosystems and fish biology” and by creating a support network for tank maintenance carried out by the classroom.

While Game and Fish is heavily involved, Schaetz said Trout in the Classroom would be possible without Trout Unlimited and its volunteers who facilitate a variety of learning opportunities. 

Through Trout in the Classroom students receive hands-on instruction which is important, said Hissong, a former Mountain View teacher.

“I know the importance of hands-on instruction for kids. These kids are growing trout from eggs to fry in about a 12 week period,” Hissong said. “It’s hands on science for them,  the whole classroom is involved in taking pH levels and deciding how they're going to reduce or increase pH, they’re doing math by counting the eggs … it’s just hands on science that’s involved.”

Roughly half of the eggs that become fry survive, Hissong said.

    

Waiting on growth

As the fish grow the Life Skills Lite classroom has been opened up to the middle school to come in and watch the growth.

“We've opened it up to the entire middle school to come in, other science classes, I have talked to some other teachers in the elementary schools … I would like to get some of the process a little further along before they come in … it's kind of the school project we just took it upon to have everything in our room,” Giltner said.

For now the eggs don’t require anything outside of water maintenance and oxygen.

As the fish grow into fry and eventually fingerlings, the students will provide the young trout with a progression of food that goes from more fine in texture to coarse.

The fish don’t actually have to be fed until the fish are sack fry and they begin to swim towards the surface of the water, and when they do it’s something many of the students have said they’re excited about. 

“They've set me up to think that we're going to be really successful with a 55 gallon tank, so I'm hoping that there's 50,” Giltner said. “If there's only one, then it is what it is, but we're working for more than one, so 50 would be amazing.”

Classrooms interested in participating in the project next year can fill out an interest form at this link: forms.monday.com/forms/291c2276770e8c99fcc58e2a8e3b3bc8?r=use1.

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