Trout in the Classroom Release

For four months, the 7th grade class at Grayson Highlands School have been raising trout from eggs to fry in a 50 gallon aquarium. On March 24, the students celebrated their success with the release of 80 small fry into Wallen's Creek. 

This program involved learning about the life cycle of fish and the challenges of recreating the ideal environment for trout to flourish: cold and clean water with lots of oxygen. Each day the students diligently tested the chemical balance, fed the fish and cleaned the tank. Midway through the program to class successfully conducted an emergency overhaul on the tank to save the fish and restore balance to the tank. 

The students also surveyed the creek for aquatic insects, picked up trash along the banks and discussed threats to the riparian habitat. During the activities, tree swallows circled above signaling their return from a winter in the subtropics- a sure sign that Spring has truly arrived. 

Special thanks to Grayson National Bank and Trout Unlimited for supporting the Trout in the Classroom Program at Grayson Highlands School, and to Lisa Benish, BRDC's Program Coordinator for her contributions to this successful program.  

Students released the young fish into Wallen's Creek

Owl Pellet Journal: A Collaboration with Grayson County’s 4-H and Blue Ridge Discovery Center

Our local 4-H has established a tradition of bringing owl pellet dissection to 4th grade science classes for a number of years. Covering the geographic extent of Grayson County ‘s elementary schools required two days, the first beginning in Fries and ending in Fairview, on the 4th of November. In between we hit Baywood. On our second day, November 11th, we started at Independence Elementary and finished up at Grayson Highlands School. For the two days our student total reached 119.

Actually, the owl pellet dissection exercise has been around for many years across our country in both public and private/home school environments. It remains a premier hands-on entry science project, always successful because the kids are mostly in control of their investigations. These pellets come from barn owls, which true to their name, inhabit barns and other large human made structures that are typically situated in an agricultural environment and especially open country that includes vast fields. All owls and indeed most raptors produce pellets, but finding pellets outdoors is difficult, and the pellets don’t hold up well under varying weather conditions. The barn floor provides a better pellet harvesting zone. 

Owls swallow most prey whole, and at some point in their digestive process the bones and fur are separated and eventually rejected prior to digestion, and coughed up in the form of a mucous covered ball, or pellet. These pellets reveal what animal the owl had for a meal, and have offered scientists the opportunity to not only better understand the diet of owls, but also what small mammal populations are about in a given area of study. When kids sit down to inspect an owl pellet, they are in fact performing real science.
Naturally, for a kid’s first time owl pellet experience, there are some gross-out hurdles to overcome. They are told that pellets are not poop, not puke, and have been sterilized. Still, until they get started, skeptical expressions remain the norm. It doesn’t take long, though, for all of that initial reluctance to give way to full on excitement. It always happens. Once they start finding the tiny skulls and other bones and begin to identify the critter meal, they are hooked.
When conducting an owl pellet program, all we need for each student aside from their very own pellet, is a bone chart and a couple of simple tools like tweezers and a toothpick. We explain that this is part archeology, part forensic science, and it is up to them to match the bones to the chart as they dig away. Of course we help, and if time allows we bring out the magnifying glasses and sometimes even microscopes. 

An hour for 4th graders is just about right, but often at the session’s end we hear cries of despair, that they were having so much fun, and can we do this again? For this recent session, my favorite comment was, “I don’t like this, I love it!” As one girl was leaving the class to wash her hands, she turned to me and said, “Now I know I want to be a scientist!” Exactly.
I would like to thank the following teachers: Megan Boyer (Fries), Ginger Burnett (Baywood), Angela Martin (Fairview), Jennifer Aldred and Kasey Hallman (Independence), and Roberta Paisley (Highlands).
Also, special thanks to Grayson County 4-H for including Blue Ridge Discovery Center.

Trout in the Classroom: Grayson Highlands School

Over the past four months Mrs. Perry’s seventh grade life science students at Grayson Highlands School have been diligently raising native brook trout in their school lobby for all visitors to see.  This is part of a program called “Trout in the Classroom” and revolves around the students learning about the biology and ecology of one of the most iconic species of the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

In November of 2013 the VDIGF fish hatchery in Marion provided the school with over two hundred freshly fertilized eggs.  Transported on ice, the eggs were delivered to the students and their newly minted 55 gallon aquarium.  

With the assistance of Blue Ridge Discovery Center, the students set up the aquarium to replicate the natural environment of the brook trout. Recreating the pristine waters of the Mount Rogers watershed is quite the challenge. To accomplish this they outfitted the aquarium with a four-layer water filter, a powerful oxygenator, and a cooling unit to keep the water temperature at a frigid 51 degrees Fahrenheit.  To make their trout feel at home the students painted a mural of underwater habitat and taped it to three sides of the aquarium. They also collected logs and stones from the brook behind the school to create an aquarium substrate and establish a natural cleansing cycle with healthy bacteria. 

Within two weeks of their arrival the eggs started to hatch, growing tails and beady eyes.  As tiny “Alevin” the brook trout still fed on their egg yolks and stayed relatively inactive. During this stage of development, the students were able to observe the trout under microscopes and watch the tiny two chamber heart circulate blood throughout the body. With a watchful eye from the school custodians, the fragile trout amazingly survived the winter break and a series of school closings until the students returned for the spring semester. 

Now that the brook trout developed into “fry” the students have learned the rocky road of managing an aquarium.  Each day they test the water for high levels of ammonia, nitrites and nitrates then check the water pH balance and temperature for inconsistencies while logging it all in a project notebook.  They make sure they feed the hungry brook trout enough food but not too much!  To date, the students have managed to raise over 100 fingerling brook trout in their 55 gallon tank.

With a little luck and a lot of hard work, this spring the students will be rewarded with a trip to a local trout stream to release their prized young into the wild! While at the stream the students will don waders and participate in another Blue Ridge Discovery Center program called “Project Fishbugs” where they will learn all about the complex context that sustains brook trout in our wild mountain streams.

“Trout in the Classroom” (A Trout Unlimited Program), was provided by Blue Ridge Discovery Center with generous support from The Harris Francis Block Foundation, Trout Unlimited and Grayson National Bank.

If you would like to see Trout in the Classroom in your school, please contact Blue Ridge Discovery Center to express your support this program: info@blueridgediscoverycenter.org

Trees in the Ground!

TREES IN THE GROUND

GRAYSON HIGHLANDS SCHOOL

GRAYSON, COUNTY, VA.

Grayson Highlands School

is positioned in a broad valley near Troutdale, Virginia. Opening this fall, this K-12 school consolidated Bridle Creek and Mount Rogers schools. In time, it will serve a larger student body, but during the transition, many kids in the neighborhood continue to attend school in Independence. Last winter, John Alexander, principal, several community members and Blue Ridge Discovery Center volunteers met to discuss broad ideas based upon outdoor classroom activities. The grounds on campus are essentially a blank slate, inspiring us to approach the possibilities with creativity and student owned ideas.

Earlier this fall, Clyde Kessler,

BRDC Board Member, initiated a tree planting program at the new school by making a donation towards a tree or two. This donation grew as others heard about the program, with Carol Broderson and Blue Ridge Birders Club chipping in. After doing some research and consulting a variety of tree experts, including David Richert with Virginia’s Department of Forestry, we settled on a list of species that would do well on this windswept sandy spot.

Taking this list

with me to Jones Nursery, Woodlawn, Va., on Tuesday, November 23rd, I met with Charlie Jones and Roger Hollinger, who helped me pick out and load up what $250.00 could buy. Charlie took an interest in our project, and not only helped me find the healthiest trees, but donated two large sugar maples to the cause. Charlie and Robert were incredibly helpful, including loading me up with stakes and pipe to help protect the trees from wind and deer.

The tree list is as follows:

• 3 large sugar maples

• 1 large red maple

• 1 large pin oak

• 1 medium serviceberry ( downy , shadblow, or Allegheny species)

• 1 medium American holly

• 1 small Norway spruce

• 1 medium eastern redbud

I then headed west

to the school, where Rebecca Absher, our point person and science teacher, met me, and with several older students we began to dig the holes and plant trees. There was not enough time left in the day to plant more than three, and with the Thanksgiving Holiday upon us, we were forced to wait until the following week to complete the planting. I left the school after securing a promise that all of the trees would be properly watered. Subsequent rains through the weekend further insured that the trees would be fine.

Realizing the magnitude of the job ahead,

meaning digging six large holes in very hard ground, I reached out to our local BRDC volunteer pool and received the promise of help from Carol Broderson, Niki Weir, William Roberts and Larry Paluzzi. We all met, (and just in the nick of weather time), at the school on Thursday, December 2nd. Devin Floyd joined us for an hour, on his way to Independence for another BRDC program.

Again, with a great deal of help from the kids, we succeeded in planting the rest of the trees, including roping them off and attaching the protective tubing. It was plenty cold and breezy, as can be seen in the pictures, but spirits remained high. Planting a tree is a commitment to and an association with the future. We pointed out to the kids that as they grow, so will the trees, and it will be fun to look back on this day while sitting under the shade of a spreading oak or maple.

This small but significant first step

on the school grounds merely sets the stage for future activities. Among our ideas is to create a tree nursery on site, a protected space for planting seedlings and even seeds for later transplanting. From here on out, the kids are going to study the grounds with trail and garden in mind. The next step is to have the kids create a map of the campus, and then begin the process of thinking about where they would like to plant a grove, what they might place along the edges, as well as how best to utilize the resource of a small branch and wet zone on one corner of the property.

By Scott Jackson-Ricketts

photos © Scott Jackson-Ricketts and Devin Floyd