Brandon Twp.-Students in Dave Green’s middle school science class have a few extra classmates’about 200 to be exact.
Thanks to a $1,000 grant from Clinton Valley Trout Unlimited, Green and students received salmon eggs on Nov.13 from Wolf Lake State Fish Hatchery in Mattawan, Van Buren County. The project is part of the Salmon in the Classroom program supervised by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
The learning experience provides students the opportunity to raise, care for and maintain the salmon in their classroom from fall until spring. The program concludes after the young fish are released in a local watershed that feeds one of the Great Lakes. The Salmon in the Classroom program incorporated more than 80 Michigan schools last year.
Green follows strict guidelines outlined by the DNR, which include keeping the eggs in a 50-gallon tank with 49-degree treated water. The water is continually agitated to simulate a moving waterway. Green said that during the recent winter vacation about 170 eggs hatched and have matured into parr about 2 inches long.
‘It’s great lesson in the lifecycle,? said Green. ‘In theory, when the fish are released this April in the Paint Creek on Brandon Township’s southeast side, they will return in about three years to spawn. The salmon will enter the Great Lakes via Lake St.Clair in Harrison Township south of Metro Beach.?
Each school that participates in the Salmon in the Classroom program receives a permit to release the fish from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Green said the parr will grow to about 4 inches long before being released in the waterway.