MANITOU SPRINGS — An education meets environment lesson plan at Ute Pass Elementary culminated outdoors at the edge of Fountain Creek.
The two 6th grade classes from the school in Cascade Colorado, spent the school year raising rainbow trout.
“We started, like the second week of school,” said 6th Grader Claire McMartin.
Classmate Scarlett Augspurger said, “[They] go from eggs to fry and to where they are now.”
Now the school year is ending and the whole school has a field day to release the fish into a local stream.
It is a location permitted by Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW).
CPW and Trout Unlimited collaborate with teachers on the program that educators use to expand curriculum.
“It helps them learn a lot,” said 6th Grade teacher, Miles Groth, “It helps them get excited, and then the conservation and stewardship part is even more important.”
Raising trout also encourages other topics like where water comes from and why the environment is important.
“It's made me think we need to treat our waterways and animals better and make sure we protect the ecosystem more than we do,” said Augspurger
“Really good for our ecosystem. also good for survival, for bears, any animal that eats trout,” said 6th Grader Elsa Lawrence.
The students have also learned they can stick with a project requiring consistent attention for months.
“We started them from the egg and raised them up to this point. So now we release them,” said Lawrence.
Adding creek water a little at a time to buckets holding the fish, acclimates them to the water temperature where they get released.
Lessons learned all the way to the very end of the project.
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