Trout in the Classroom is being taught at various grade school levels around the country. Here in New Jersey, TIC is the cooperative effort of New Jersey Division of Fish & Wildlife and New Jersey State Council of Trout Unlimited along with its various state wide chapters. Our program came about in 1991 when a teacher in the Hopatcong Middle School worked with the Fred Burroughs North Jersey chapter of TU to raise brook trout from eggs. Those same students, dubbed "the Brook Trout Bunch", successfully petitioned the state to have the brook trout listed as the state fish. The brook trout (salvelinus fontinalis) - actually not a true trout, but a char and member of the salmon family - is the only "trout" that is native to our state.
TIC News
Important information about New Jersey Trout Unlimited’s Trout in the Classroom program. This category includes permanent entries that should appear on the front page of TIC Journal.
December 19th, 2006
Onion Sack projects
What do onion sacks have to do with raising brook trout? Well, nothing and everything! The famous onion sack project is simply a way for students to learn about in-stream entomology. Trout feed upon numerous species of insects, most of which spend almost their entire lives underwater.
In this project, TU volunteers fill empty onion sacks with leaves from the forest floor, tie up the bags, and anchor them to the bottom of a local trout stream. After two or three weeks, the sacks are removed and placed into a container with enough water to cover each sack and brought into the classroom. There, the students remove the contents and identify the various mayfly, caddis and stonefly nymphs as well as other squirmy creatures such as midge larva and maybe even a crayfish. The students are always amazed at both the diversity and amount of insect life that is found with such a project.
It is best to do this activity prior to the opening of fishing season when the rivers are full of anglers who might remove the sacks, thinking they are trash or trample on them without realizing they are in the stream.
December 19th, 2006
Survival Success Rates Vary Widely
It has been wonderful to hear from so many of you through personal e-mails about your classes’ successes and failures. We have a wide variety of backgrounds in our teachers, some with much tank experience and others with very little. Many of you have taught me about such important areas as ammonia and chloramides. It appears that mortality rates have varied greatly throughout the state. Some tanks have hundreds of fry while others are down to 50 or less. We had two schools lose all fry, one due to a chiller malfunction and the other to water quality issues. Both schools will be re-supplied with fry to get them back on track. By the way, I now have the back-up chiller should any of you need to use it while yours is repaired. Let’s hope we’re done with the breakdowns for this year!
October 12th, 2006
Calculating the hatch date
It is always an exciting time when the eggs arrive and the anticipation begins for the date that the eggs ultimately hatch. Did you know that the actual date can be calculated? Simply follow the math outlined here:
The specific time it takes for eggs to hatch is measured in Accumulated Thermal Units (ATUs). It takes about 450 ATUs to hatch brook trout eggs. ATUs are measured in the # of days multiplied by the water temperatures in Celcius. To calculate your hatch date, you will need to know the date that the eggs were fertilized and the water temps that they have been kept at. For those classes that received eggs on October the 12th, your eggs were fertilized on September 13th and have been in constant 52 degree (Farenheit) water until delivery from your classroom.