Maxey Elementary students find learning in letting go

SCHRAMM PARK STATE RECREATION AREA — The kids from Maxey Elementary School lined the wooden guardrails with a special assignment.

Each of the 86 students held a paper cup with a young rainbow trout swimming nervously inside.

When the time came on Thursday morning, some of the baby fish were transferred gently into the clear, spring-fed waters of former hatchery ponds at Schramm Park State Recreation Area.

Others flew into the air like Scud missiles.

The Lincoln third-graders were at Schramm for Trout in the Classroom release day at the state park and its Ak-Sar-Ben Aquarium about 9 miles south of Gretna along the Platte River.

The nationwide environmental education program, sponsored by Trout Unlimited, is for kids in grades K-12, who raise the trout from eggs in classroom aquariums until they get to be about 3 inches long and then release them in local ponds and streams, providing the water is cold enough.

“The program provides an opportunity for students to learn about aquatic resources and habitat within the framework of hatching and raising trout,” said Lindsey Chizinski, a fisheries biologist with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission who coordinates the program.

Along the way, students learn how to monitor water quality, how nitrates and ammonia can adversely affect a trout’s natural habitat and about some of the more than 100 fish species in Nebraska and food webs, life cycles and fish anatomy, she said.

Maxey teacher Ann Hagaman said she chose to participate in the trout program because it fits in with the school’s embryonic unit. Students also raise chicks from eggs but trout eggs are better, she said, because students can watch the little fish develop through thin, almost clear membrane.

“Luke loves it,” said Monica Parker, whose son Luke is in the class. “I think it’s awesome. I think it’s very cool.

“My son likes the outdoors and he likes information and focusing on details, so this is right up his alley.”

The Trout in the Classroom is in 24 schools this year, its second in Nebraska, Chizinski said. It’s paid for by Game and Parks, the Nebraska Chapter of Trout Unlimited No. 710 and grants from the Nebraska Environmental Trust.

Classrooms got 200 to 300 fertilized trout eggs in early February from Ennis National Fish Hatchery in Montana. Before that, they each got a 40-gallon aquarium, a chiller to keep the water at 55 degrees and other supplies and equipment.

On Thursday, a cool drizzle altered the schedule of activities, sending students into the Ak-Sar-Ben Aquarium after the fish release to learn how to cast a fly rod and tie artificial flies from The Cornhuskers Fly-Fishers club.

They also netted tiny aquatic insects and other invertebrates from a baby pool filled with water scooped from Salt Creek and Wilderness Park and examined the critters with magnifying glasses. And they learned about frogs and turtles and toured the aquarium’s live fish collection.

But the highlight of the day was the trout release, even though some of the kids were sad to see their fish go.

Natalie Preister watched the fish she named Glossy swim away — with fellow fingerlings Lovey, Cloe and Billy Bob.

Maxey Elementary students find learning in letting go