Hey, Mom I love to vacuum!

The students love to vacuum the tank! It really helps prevent water quality issues! The students vacuum the tank every morning while adding 5 gallons of fresh water to the tank. I promise I won't tell your parents how much you love to vacuum!

TIC and Hands-on Lessons!

One reason that I love the TIC program is that it provides opportunities for hands-on learning! Currently in science we have been discussing what light can do. Our book shows a picture of a child placing his hand in an aquarium filled with water to demonstrate how light can bend or refract so during science we took a walk to the lobby to observe this in our trout aquarium. We also took the opportunity to feed the fish and allow the students to put a finger in the tank while other students watched for refraction. Check out refraction!














This was a lot of fun! The students giggled when the trout jumped up and touched their fingers. The students always enjoy learning more when they can get their hands-involved in the learning process!

Trout Journal 3-3-10

Tasha: The trout are doing awesome. We take care of them everyday. We feed them and
clean their tank. They are doing great!

May(Megan): Jordan just cleaned the tank. It looks a lot cleaner. They are getting bigger!

Pictures and Pranks...

I thought you might enjoy seeing the trout crew in the process of cleaning the tank, adding

fresh water, and feeding the fish! So I snapped a quick picture and handed the camera to Mr. Hart and asked him to take a few pictures of crew in action. There was my first mistake...

Anyway, I proceed to my classroom to start the day. Later when Mr. Hart returned the camera, he asked me to look at the picture of Megan to see if it suited me. Looking at Megan's smiling face, I said "Yes, that looks great!" (to Mr. Hart's dismay) Apparently that was not the reaction he was hoping for, he questioned- "Did you look at it?" Looking more closely with my aging eyes, I noticed she was not adding fresh clean water to the tank in the picture, but she was pretending to add a gallon of floor cleaner. She looks so innocent!

I hope you enjoy seeing some of the crew and the fish they care for . Also, we wanted to send a special thank you to Mr. Berry our faithful tank tender. Mr. Berry is our custodian. He feeds the fish and watches over the tank on the weekends as well as on snow days. Below is a picture of him in the act of feeding the fish.

Bird of Prey Visits Lack

Mr. Hart found himself caregiver of a Horned Grebe, which he informed me likes to eat trout. Of course he took the opportunity to bring the bird that had a wounded wing to Lack to visit. He placed the bird in an aquarium filled with water and then proceeded to add gold fish, crayfish, and guppies to the tank as we discovered the eating preferences of the bird. Later that afternoon, there was a knock at the first grade door. I opened the door to see Mr. Hart dangling the bird of prey above the trout tank. I quickly enlisted the help of the students to "guard" the tank to keep our fish safe until the release. We made it through the visit without losing any trout to our visitor.

The students have been experimenting with colored yarn to see what colors the fish prefer.

Thoughts from the Trout Crew:
2-6-10
Tasha: Thanks to Mt. View we got more trout. We take good care of them. We love them.
They are cool!
2-17-10
Chase: Ya know it's a wonder if the trout we released are still alive, but these
trout really love colors.
2-23-10
Megan: The trout are getting bigger and bigger! I love feeding the fish. We are holding
different colors of string over the tank to see what color they like best!

Jay(Jordan): I love the trout! They are catching up to Mt. View's trout. They are almost as
big as theirs! They are awesome!!
2-24-10
Jay(Jordan): I cleaned the trout tank today and it was cool!

May(Megan): The trout are getting bigger by the minute. The trout are soooooo cool!

Tasha: The trout are doing awesome. We take care of them everyday. We feed them
and clean their tank. They are doing great!

Thoughts from the "Trout Crew"

So far the new fish have made a smooth transition to our tank. The students are excited to now have around 80-90 fish in the tank.

Thoughts from the "Trout Crew":

1-25-10
Shane: So many fish are left. They have survived a long time.

2-3-10
Chase: I like these fish.

2-5-10
Jordan: I love the trout! They are so awesome!
Megan: The trout are awesome. They are getting bigger and bigger! They're so cool. I love the
trout!
Josie: Helping with the trout is fun. The trout are awesome !!
Darin: Thanks to Mt. View for the wonderful donation of trout.

Trout Adoption

We had a bit of excitement today at Lack. I received an email from Mr. Smith at Mt. View Elementary offering some trout for our tank. Mr. Smith has joined the TIC Program through our local sponsors-Penns Creek TIU. He was experiencing some difficulty maintaining the water quality due to having too many fish of significant size. Our sponsor shared that we had recently lost many fish and recommended maybe some of the fish could be transferred to our tank since a 55 gallon tank will only support around 100 fish without experiencing water quality issues. Our schools share the same principal so she volunteered to transport the trout from one school to the other today. The students were very excited to adopt the new fish! It was interesting to see the differences in size and color of the fish. The coloration of their fish was lighter and their fish were definitely larger. We did our best to involve all the students in the process allowing some students to observe the new fish before we placed them into the tank , some to participate in the actual transition from the bucket to the tank, and other students to feed the new fish . It will be interesting to see how the new fish adjust to our tank.