Field Trip Reflections

After our salmon release field trip, we spent some time reflecting and writing paragraphs about our experience. Here is a peek at what some of us had to say about our trip...

My Best Field Trip

       Yesterday I went on a field trip to release our salmon. The first thing we did was go down to the river to release our salmon. We grabbed a baggie and Kevin put water and fish in the bag and then we put it under water for 5 seconds. Then we slowly dipped the fish out. After that we went around to stations. My favourite station was the salmon life-cycle play. I also liked the station where we released our salmon. The best part about releasing our salmon was I got to name the salmon in my head. My most favourite part was walking to the bus - it was fun! I thought it was a good field trip. 

By: Brandon

Releasing our Salmon

       Yesterday I went on a field trip to release our salmon. The first thing we did was go down to release our salmon. We grabbed a baggie and Kevin put water and a fish in the bag then we put it under water for 5 seconds. Then we slowly dipped the fish out. After that we went to stations. My favourite station was the third play. It was funny because one of the boys made the female salmon lay eggs. The male salmon was funny, too, when one of the boys made the male fish spray out white stuff. I think it was supposed to be Milt. Then we felt some snakes. I think the snakes felt really smooth and colourful. I tried to feel the tongue but the tongue was too fast to feel it. I thought it was so much fun to do that I wanted to do it again and again. 

By: Riannon

Our Fun Field Trip

       Yesterday we went on a field trip to release our salmon. The first thing we did was go down to the river to release our salmon. We grabbed a baggie and Kevin put it in water and fish in the baggie and then we put the baggie under the water for 10 or 5 seconds. And then we slowly dipped the fish in the water and said Good-Bye. And after that we went around to stations. My favourite station was touching the fish and touching the snakes. After that we pretended we were fish and we pretended we traveled to the sea. And I felt happy. The field trip was fun. 

By: Fuzzy

Leave us a comment: 

What was your favourite part of the field trip to release our salmon? 

Did you name your salmon as you let it go, like Brandon did? What did you name your salmon? 

Releasing our Salmon Fry

If you've been following us through the year, you'll know that we have been raising salmon in our classroom tank. Back in December, we got about 50 eggs in our tank. Our eggs were eyed already, which means that there were already baby salmon growing inside them.

Can you see the "eyes"?

A few months after we got our eggs, they hatched! We got to watch the tiny Alvein break out of their eggs and wriggle around on the bottom of the tank. Alvein can't swim because they have a heavy yolk sac still attached to their belly. That yolk sac gives them the energy they need to grow!

Alvein like this one can't swim yet!

As our Alveins grew, their yolk sacs shrank and they finally buttoned-up. Then they took their first trip to the surface of the tank! At the surface, they took a gulp of air and filled up their swim bladders. We learned that a fish's swim bladder is like a life jacket that helps the fish float. Now our Alvein are called Fry!

At the end of May, it was time for our little Fry to leave home! We carefully packed our Fry into a bucket, and set off for the Lillooet Lower Spawning Channel.

Cup by cup, we moved our Fry's water into a bucket so we could bring them on the bus.

Can you see the big block of ice? Fry need to be kept in very cool water. 

Once we filled the bucket with water, it was time to catch all our fish!

 
Our salmon made it safely to Lillooet with a bunch of Fry from Mr. Remple's class up at the high school. Mr. Remple even managed to rescue a few escapees from the concrete, so every last fish was able to make the trip! When we arrived in Lillooet, it was time to say good-bye to the little Fry we had raised.

Kevin gave us each a plastic bag with a few of our Fry in it to release.

The stream is massive compared to the tank our Fry have grn up in!

After releasing our salmon into the Spawning Channel, we were luck to go on a hike around the channel and explore our Fry's new habitat. The Lillooet Lower Spawning Channel was made by people to help Pink salmon, and now Coho salmon, regain areas to spawn and grow up. We learned a lot about what makes the Spawning Channel a great home for our little Fry. 

Taking the bridge across the Channel.

A guide explains the important features of the Fry's new habitat.

The Spawning Channel is a great fish habitat! It is surrounded by trees and bushes and these are important for the salmon because they keep shade over the water and that makes it nice and cool. We also noticed lots of large rocks in the Channel. When the water rushes over the rocks, it makes little waves kind of like rapids in a bigger river. Those waves are important because they mix more oxygen into the water and the fish need that to breathe. Another important part of the salmon's habitat is at the bottom of the Channel - it's covered in gravel. Adult salmon dig their redds in the gravel, so without gravel there would be nowhere for the eggs to be buried!

We also discovered that the Spawning Channel is home to a lot of other creatures that are friends and predators of the salmon. We got to look up close at many different creatures along our hike.

Can you guess what animal lives here?

One thing our Fry will need to start looking for right away is food! What does a tiny fish eat? They eat tiny creatures! In the waters of the stream, we found many tiny insect larvae and other creatures that the salmon prey on. 

With a net you can catch creatures in the muddy stream waters.

We used magnifying glasses and these viewfinders to take a look the creatures we caught.

We looked at drawings of larvae to try and identify the creatures we found. 

Our Fry aren't the only fish feeding on these tiny creatures, though. There are many different varieties of fish living in the Channel and they all need different things to survive. We took a look at some fish - big and small - that share a habitat with our salmon Fry.

Can you spot the sucker fish?

We got to feel fish scales and learn about how they protect a fish.

Division 2 takes a look at a map of the local watershed. 

Our Fry are only just beginning their journeys. After they grow up into Smolts in the Spawning Channel, they will leave the stream and head to the river. Once they reach the river, they will travel across British Columbia, from Lillooet down to Vancouver. They'll be heading for the coast! Once the reach the ocean, they swim up the coastline of BC, past Vancouver Island, and all the way up to the Arctic Ocean. It's a trip that will take years and thousands of kilometers to make. In the ocean, our salmon will eat larger fish and grow into adults. When they are ready to spawn, they will find their way back to the stream where we released them in Lillooet, and they will lay their eggs there! What an adventure!

Division 2 made an adventure of our own, pretending we were Smolts heading down the river towards the ocean. We had to work hard to "survive" the trip - passing lots of friends, predators, and human-made roadblocks on our way! Can you remember all the different challenges we faced as Smolts?

We set off on an imaginary journey as Smolts!

Leave us a comment: 

What did you see on your journey to the ocean as a Smolt? Was it a friend or a predator? 

Share something new that you learned about Salmon on our trip! 

What do you think it would be like to be a tiny Fry in the giant Spawning Channel? 

Salmon inside-out

Back in April, Division 2 had a special visitor! Kevin came to our classroom to teach us about how a salmon survives in the river. He brought an adult salmon with him, and then he dissected it so we could see all the different body parts that help a salmon stay alive. 

This is an adult male salmon. Can you see its hook nose?

First Kevin showed us how to tell if an adult salmon is a male or female. This adult salmon is a male. You can tell because its sides are dark red and it has a hooked nose. Male and female salmon are different on the inside, too. A male salmon has two milt sacs and a female salmon will have hundreds of eggs! We saw male and female salmon just like this one, that were ready to spawn, when we visited Adam's River salmon run this September. 

The outside of a salmon's body helps it survive in the water. It has sticky slime all over its body to help it swim fast and slip away from predators. Do you know what animals prey on salmon? Salmon's body's are also covered in scales. Kevin showed us that a fish's scales are like a tree trunk - they have growth rings! You can look at the number of rings on a salmon's scales to tell how old a salmon is. We got to look at the salmon's scales through magnifying glasses. What other tool could you use to see a fish scale up close? 

  

Kevin removes the milt sacs from the salmon. 

Kevin showed us all the different organs you can find inside an adult salmon's body. !He told us how each one has its own job to do in order to keep the salmon alive. We got to take a close look at each organ. It got a little bloody ... but we didn't mind!

At the end of the dissection, we got a special demonstration from Kevin. He showed us how to fillet the salmon and slice it into pieces for drying. In Lytton, many people air dry the salmon with a little bit of salt to make stwen. We talked about all the different ways to cure a salmon, and discovered that some of our families can salmon, air dry salmon, and smoke salmon. Mmm! Have you ever filleted a salmon before? 

Kevin shows us how to slice the fillet to make stwen.

Can you guess what these different organs are? Leave your answers as a comment below! 

Organ #1 

Clue: This organ digests the food that the salmon eats. 

Organ #2 
Clue: Without this organ, a salmon would sink.

Organ #3 
Clue: This organ helps a fish collect something very valuable from the water - oxygen!

Organ #4
Clue: This organ is actually a pump made of strong muscle.
Like a house with different rooms, ours has four rooms, but a salmon's only has 2!

Organ #5
Clue: This organ has a twin, but they can both move on their own
to help a salmon see above and below itself at the same time!

Hatched!

A few months ago, our class received a large fish tank. Inside our fish tank, the BC Fisheries staff put a few dozen salmon eggs. The salmon eggs were all eyed - that means that they had tiny salmon growing inside them.

Over the weeks, our salmon have been changing, and now we can see what was going on inside those eggs. Our salmon have hatched!

The alveins hang out on the bottom of the tank.

That orange blob on its belly side is called a yolk sac.

Small salmon who have just hatched from their eggs are called Alveins. Alveins have eyes, a mouth, and a tail like a fish, but they don't have fully grown fins yet and they can't swim. Instead, Alveins wiggle around on the bottom of the tank.

Alveins are easy to spot because they have a bright orange yolk sac still attached to their bellies. The yolk sac is like a tank full of food and energy that the Alveins will use to grow and change into a young salmon! As the Alveins grow, their yolk sac will slowly disappear.

Leave us a comment: 

What did you observe when we looked at our Alveins in class on Wednesday?

Have you ever raised an animal from an egg before? What kind of animal was it? How did it grow and change? 

You are my Sunshine

This week in Science we are learning all about the Sun! What makes the sun shine? Why is the Sun so hot? What would it be like on Earth without the Sun? How big is the Sun?

Watch this very informative (and very funny) music video to learn all about the star we depend on: our Sun!

Leave us a comment: 

What is one new thing you learned about the Sun this week? 

What are you still wondering about the Sun? 

Can you think of anything you wouldn't be able to do if there was no more Sun? 

Out of this World!

Division 2 is back from a relaxing break and we are ready to learn something new! In Science we are starting a new unit all about Space. Our planet, Earth, shares space with the other planets in our solar system. We are learning the names of all of the planets in the solar system, and what makes each of them special.

During our Art class last week we dreamed up our own planets. Check out the new planets we created:

We used chalk, oil pastels, and paint to create the surface of our planets.

We created planets with warm or cool colour palates.

Just like in our solar system, no two planets are the same!

Some planets have large blotches that are storms, craters, or lakes and oceans. 

Our planets have very detailed surfaces. 

What would it be like to visit this planet? 

Leave us a comment: 


What features did you create on your planet's surface? 


What facts do you know about our solar system?