Scott explained that the Salmon in the Classroom project is an initiative that educators can apply for through the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. She said that for the program, educators go through training and are given a cooler full of salmon eggs. Then it is up to the classroom to take care of those eggs and keep them alive once they hatch.

Scott said her class struggled a bit in the beginning when setting up the tank and bringing the water up to the proper specifications, like temperature and salinity. However, once that was remedied, it was an easy process to maintain the tank. Once the salmon hatched, Scott said that was when there was more upkeep, like feeding and cleaning.

With the project, the DNR also provides lessons for the students to complete, according to Scott. In doing these lessons, students interested in careers relating to natural resources can get hands-on experience working with wildlife.

Overall, Scott said that the focus of the Salmon in the Classroom Project is on education rather than conservation. The DNR tells educators that even if they have a total loss of salmon or if some eggs don’t hatch, it’s okay because students are still able to get hands-on experience.

News Photo by Kayla Wikaryasz Aubrey Scott’s Natural Resources class from Alpena High School gather around the salmon release site at Rotary Island Mill Park on Tuesday. Students released 84 salmon into the Thunder Bay River.

The project is a culmination of two classes, Natural Resources A: Rivers, Lakes, and Wetlands, and Natural Resources B: Wildlife and Land Management. Natural Resources A course material is focused on measuring water quality, learning how you can improve water quality, et cetera. Natural Resources B course material is focused on aquatic epidemiology, forestry, et cetera.

Vesper Stutzman, Madison Snyder, Brook Schroeder, and Tidus Garant are all students in Scott’s natural resources class who attended Tuesday’s salmon release.

Stutzman said that the class began the project in October.

“I think we got 100 or 150,” Stutzman said. “And we didn’t feed them at first because they were eggs, but we waited for all of them to hatch. Some of them didn’t … But once they were hatched, they had … yolk sacks still on them. So we didn’t need to feed them then, either.”

Stutzman explained that when the class began feeding the salmon, they started with small portions of food.

News Photo by Kayla Wikaryasz On Tuesday, Daniel Moffat teaches Marina Sklar, an Alpena High School student, how to operate a Remotely Operated Vehicle. Moffat is the stewardship and education specialist at the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

“Then we kept increasing that,” Stutzman said. “We lost some, but at some point…they started growing more, they stabilized, so we didn’t really lose many. And throughout the whole project, we were doing different activities about fish species, and they are scientific names, so we were doing a little bit of Latin…And just studying their chance of survival and their life cycle.”

Snyder said that she enjoyed learning about the salmon.

“We learned about life cycles, and we learned about different things that they need in the wild to survive,” Snyder said. “And it was really interesting to (learn) about predators and prey for these animals.”

Schroeder said she liked watching the salmon’s evolution over the past academic year.

“My favorite part of Salmon in the Classroom was honestly just seeing them and watching them grow and get to the size today that we’re releasing them,” she said.

Many of the students expressed interest in pursuing careers in conservation. Garant, who helped to clean the salmon tanks during the project, said he is interested in pursuing a career in fisheries and conservation.

“I like fish and I like conservation. Water (is) awesome,” Garant said.