Middletown High School biology students spend their year learning about life cycles and body systems through a combination of textbooks and hands-on learning.
But they’ll get a real-life feel for the life cycles of trout during the next few months as they watch and take care of 150 trout eggs from birth to fingerling size, when they’ll be released into the wild as part of Trout in the Classroom, a program new at the school this year.
On Friday, Middletown resident Jim Marecki delivered trout eggs to biology teacher Sharon Steger’s classroom on behalf of the Potomac Patuxent chapter of Trout Unlimited, a nationwide nonprofit group that works to conserve, protect, and restore coldwater fisheries and their watersheds.
Marecki handed the glass jar full of eggs to Ben Williams, a 15-year-old sophomore in Steger’s honors biology class, to be placed into the tank.
“Yay, I’m a mother,” Ben deadpanned as he poured the eggs into the tank, bringing big laughs from the class.
The class will raise the fish until sometime in May, when they will be released into a site approved by the Department of Natural Resources.
Marecki said he enjoys seeing the reactions of students when the group brings eggs into the classroom.
“I get as excited as the kids to watch these hatch out,” he said.
In total, the program, funded by grants and donations, costs about $1,000 to run, including the costs of the tank, the eggs, and a cold water pump.
Steger, who has been teaching at the school for 14 years, applied for a grant from the Maryland Association of Science Teachers, which supplied $500 for the program. The rest of the funds came from other local organizations, and fundraising Steger conducted, such as raffles at the Myersville Trolley Festival. Trout Unlimited also donated $200 to the program.
The program is currently in 46 schools in counties across the state and Washington, D.C. Steger said it has been at several Frederick County schools, but this year marks the first year of the program at Middletown. She said the school gets to keep the equipment, and she will continue to use the program in years to come.
Ben said he and his classmates had been looking forward to the eggs arriving.
“When Mrs. Steger told us we were going to get trout eggs, that was really exciting,” he said. “We had been studying ecosystems and stuff like that … so this fit into what we were learning. We’ve been taking care of little terrariums with guppies in them, but this is a bit step up, raising trout from eggs.”
Erin Doherty, a 16-year-old sophomore, also had been anticipating the day the eggs arrived.
“There’s a lot of excitement,” she said. “It’s just awesome. It’s a good learning experience.”
Steger was also thrilled about the arrival of the eggs, the culmination of many months of work and fundraising. She said the students’ excitement was her favorite part of the process.
“That’s the awesome part,” she said. “That’s the best part, seeing them get excited. That’s what makes it worthwhile, all the time spent doing the grant.”
tlaino@gazette.net
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