West Virginia Wildlife from Eyewitness News

Trout in the Classroom

Local kids get "schooled" on brown trout.

January 30, 2008
Reporter: Patrick McMurtry
Videographer: Brad Rice

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"Reach up and turn it to the left, that a boy!"

"You're going to be given the responsibility of raising these fish for us."

This lucky youngster just put his own personal brown trout fingerling in an aquarium in his classroom. It's part of trout unlimited's trout in the classroom project.

"Everybody's going to have their own fish. We're going to put these little bitty guys in your tank and then every day, when you come to school, you're going to have the responsibility of taking care of these fish and raising them until the end of your school year, when they are big enough to be put into a stream."

Everything you see here has been donated, including the fingerlings which come from the dnr, and the manhours given by t-u members. Lakewood elemtary came into the picture when the gym teacher joined trout unlimited.
Heath Perry/Lakewood Elementary:
"I'd like to teach them about the lifecycle of the trout, what the trout eat, just basically what fish eat, maybe something about the study of bugs in the water.

It's real hands on."

But before these kids just start tossing the fingerlings into the tank, they get their first lesson.

"When the fish came in today, they came in water that was 46 degrees and the water in the tank is 56 degrees and we don't want the fish to get too warm, too quick, so we're going to do a little thing called adjusting the water."

And for the next several months, these kids will be adjusting their school day to make sure their new friends in the aquarium grow up to be big, fighting brown trout swimming in a stream near you. Good luck guys. For west virginia wildlife, i'm patrick mcmurtry, eyewitness news.

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W. Va. DNR

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