SALMON IN THE
CLASSROOM
At Duck Creek Learning Center, We have started a project
called “Salmon in the Classroom”. Salmon in the Classroom is a real life
science activity to get students involved in raising, care and maintaining the
salmon in the classroom from fall until spring. We start out getting fertilized
salmon eggs from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), where we raise and
feed them until they reach fingerling stage.
Our salmon start out in the EGG stage and will stay in this
stage depending on the water temperature; it will take between 6 to 12 weeks to
hatch. In this stage you will start to see tiny black spots on the eggs, which
are called eyed eggs.
Next stage is called ALEVIN, which are newly hatched salmon,
which have an attached yolk sac that they feed on for nourishment. Nourishment
from the yolk sacs lasts up to several weeks. When they start to emerge into
the FRY stage, where our salmon are currently at.
In the FRY stage we start to feed the salmon little by
little. The food we feed the salmon look like finely ground coffee, but it’s
not. It consists of byproduct of fish, and composite of vitamin. We will continue to feed the salmon the finely
ground food for 2 weeks, until they get longer than 1 inch.
At the moment we have 190 fry salmon and 10 losses since we've started. The temperature of the fish tank is at a steady 48 degrees, just
how it would be in the wild. We have two sets of conjoined twins, where they
are conjoined at the still remaining yolk sac.
