Provincial program teaches Grade 8 students about aquatic life in Alberta

Monday marked a special day for Grade 8 students from Calgary's Willow Park School.

They've spent five months now raising rainbow trout in an aquarium in their classroom from eggs, and on Monday they released them at McLean Pond in Kananaskis Country.

"Every January, the program sends out eggs to about 95 schools across the province," said Ryan Lyster, fish hatcher supervisor at the Sam Livingstone Fish Hatchery.

"Schools are all set up with an aquarium, and they're basically like mimicking our process in the hatchery, so they're taking a rainbow trout egg from the eyed egg stage, they're hatching them out, taking care of them to a point where they can stock them out in the spring of every year."

Participating students and teachers receive a fish research licence, allowing them to raise the trout and then release them into provincially approved waterbodies as a part of Alberta's fish stocking program.

Alberta started the Fish in Schools program in 1998, and says it has seen more than 60,000 students from upwards of 40 communities across the province participate since then.

"It's a really great educational experience," said Lyster.

"There's some interactive education from the Bow Habitat Station throughout that process, so they're really getting that hands-on experience of raising fish, and then also a lot of learning about ecosystems and water bodies in the province as well."

Lyster says the program is small in comparison to how many fish the hatchery releases annually.

"We're sending out about 665,000 out of this hatchery this spring, and then there's going to be another 200,000 or 300,000 in the fall as well," he said.

"We have rainbow trout, tiger trout, brook trout and brown trout. Our primary purpose is to provide recreational fishing and angling opportunities for Albertans. It has benefits to creating harvest opportunities for anglers, but it also can take pressure off of some of those natural systems where there's zero harvest or zero retention in some of our rivers and streams."

Lyster says the hatchery releases fish that are 20 to 25 centimetres in length and are 12 months old.

The students are releasing five-month-old fish that are eight centimetres long.

"The ponds that the kids are putting those fish into are typically ponds that would overwinter," he said.

"So the fish that they're putting in wouldn't necessarily be caught this year but after a year's worth of growth, then it's going to be a fish that people can (catch) you know, it's going to take a hook."

Tanya Thomas, who teaches Grade 8 math and science at Willow Park School, says five classes at the school participated this year.

Each class received 65 eggs and students were responsible for feeding them and cleaning the aquarium.

"It's part of our fresh and saltwater systems unit for Grade 8 science," Thomas explained.

"We've been looking at trout habitat in Alberta, and what would be a great habitat for these species."

Amy Keizer, 14, says she has an aquarium at home and is used to caring for fish.

Keizer says McLean Pond is a perfect habitat for the classroom trout.

"It's really clean and really like clear and cold," she said. "So it's a good place for fish to live because the trout like cold water."

Imogen Lyster, 14, says caring for the trout through their early stages of life helps her and the other students realize the impact they have on the environment.

"Being mindful of the animals and, especially if you're out in nature, thinking, 'What I do will impact what happens around here,'" she said.

Learn more about the program on the Bow Habitat website.