By Lani Duke
Trout study hooks kids
CASTLETON—Brook trout have moved into Castleton Village School, teaching students in grades six through eight about biology as the piscine swimmers hatch from eggs, eat, poop, and grow up before the students’ eyes. Trout Unlimited supplies eggs from the Vermont state hatchery in Roxbury; this year is the first that the organization’s Trout in the Classroom program has come to Castleton, in a statewide outreach to 20 schools. Castleton students received 200 trout eggs.
Students observe, diagram, and write about the living exhibits, comparing hatching rates, testing water chemistry, and learning to think about the overall web of life. Scientific data call for one percent or only two out of that 200 to hatch. Students hope for more than that.
Ecosystem requirements and watersheds, the mechanisms of oxygen storage in free-running waters, the levels of specific chemical compounds including nitrates and nitrites, the importance of bacteria–all figure into the students’ study of not only the hatching fish, but the Castleton River, flowing behind their school building.
In May, after five months of near-daily study, the students will release the trout they’ve raised.
News from the teachers’ lounge
TINMOUTH—Students in many schools celebrate reaching the 100-day mark of their school year. At Tinmouth Elementary, students have made 100 hand-made cards of thanks and appreciation, which will be sent to 100 residents at random.
POULTNEY—Poultney’s school board recently voted to allow five percent of its students to attend other schools and to approve 10 students from elsewhere to attend Poultney High under the state’s school choice program.
Recent hires in the Rutland Southwest Supervisory Union (Poultney) include James Weselcouch, Poultney Elementary music teacher; James Kelley, Poultney High driver education teacher; Staci Jedlick and Macaela Lewis, 7-8 grade winter cheering co-coaches; and Brian Weber, Heather Reynolds, and and Amanda Posch, Poultney High after-school program instructional assistants. Kathy Hunter has resigned from her position as Odyssey of the Mind co-coach at Poultney Elementary.
When life hands you an outdoor freezer chest . . .
. . . you go ice fishing. Lakes Region folks find positive elements to Vermont lakeside winters even when their thermometers plunge to below zero. The 37th Annual Lake Bomoseen Ice Fishing Derby was held the weekend of Valentine’s Day, to be followed by the Great Benson Fishing Derby the weekend of Feb. 21-22. The two derbies are money raisers for the Castleton Lions Club and the Fair Haven Rotary Club, respectively.
