Glen Meadow Middle School in Vernon, Sussex County, will be graduating a class of 375 brook trout into the community. The trout will be released into Wawayanda Creek on Saturday morning, May 26th.
Watching the fish grow beyond their egg stage in the fall to vigorous swimming machines has been enjoyable and educational. A visitors journal has been kept since the Brook Trout arrived six months ago and over 300 students, teachers, and community friends have since visited the fish and signed the brookie guest book. A strong turn out is anticiapted to watch the Brook Trout as they are released.
Feeding the fish has now become a much anticiapted daily class event. The fish splash water out of the tank and regularly leap out of the water for food. The fish are now 3 to 4 inches and seem ready to move out of the classroom and into the open swimming spaces of New Jersey.
As a first year experience, raising trout in the classroom is not without some challenges - PH and ammonia tests, cleaning pump pre-filters, sustaining optimum water temperture (52-56F) levels, removing bio-mass gunk created by the growing fish, and wiping down the inside tank walls are all the work part. Coming to know more about the life and environment of the New Jersey State fish, the Brook Trout, is the well worth-it reward part.