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An elementary principal's perspective
by Terry Segovis, Principal, Oakcliff Elementary, (June 2005)
How has Small Fry to Go , a project that includes raising rainbow trout in an elementary school, applied math, technology, science, social studies, and language arts skills and brought diverse communities together? At Oakcliff Elementary and Kingsley Elementary, located in the metropolitan Atlanta area, the story is unfolding for thousands of elementary students and their parents and thousands of small fry trout.
Oakcliff staff had some trepidation about hatching several thousand fish eggs for release into Georgia's Chattahoochee River. We had never raised animals on this scale. Previous experiences with animal husbandry included some butterflies, a chicken egg incubator, some turtles, and the occasional hamster family. We picked the brain of the consultants and visited a state fish hatchery in preparation for our Small Fry to Go project.
Oakcliff families embraced the project immediately. Setting up the egg rolling jar and the filtered trough just outside a courtyard window provided the perfect “nursery window” setting. Parents and students stopped and enjoyed the progress the sac fry were making. We could see more hatching and growing every day.
We measured, weighed, counted, filtered, and checked the fry each day. We learned about life cycles, fish anatomy, fish habitats, and tolerances to waterborne chemicals. We discovered where rainbow trout thrive naturally; what place fish have in the recreational economy; as well as what cultures use fish for their major protein source. We wrote reports, letters, and news articles. Everything was going along just fine until on one day we added a little too much water with an elevated chlorine level to the Small Fry to Go hatchery.
Our test kit was not precise enough to measure the necessary parts per million, and the slight increase in chlorine levels killed our entire first batch of fry. Oakcliff staff and students were truly saddened. We received letters of condolence from our sister site, Kingsley Elementary. Kingsley also shared a portion of their fry so we could continue the project. However, we did not know at the time what had killed the fry.
Immediately, staff and students throughout both programs began hypothesizing and researching what could have gone so terribly wrong. We checked and double checked our test kit, our readings, dissolved oxygen levels, temperature, filters. We called experts. We went online to find anything we could to explain the die off. A few days after our first batch died, all of Kingsley's died too. By this time we were narrowing the possibilities down and finally discovered the mistake in the test kit's sensitivity. This discovery became a teachable moment for a school-wide lesson on the importance of place value and round-off error.
I have never seen such complete involvement of a total school body like I observed with the Small Fry to Go project. The fact that the fish were living, and we were their care-takers made everyone a stakeholder in the health and welfare of the Small Fry . When we failed at keeping them alive, it mattered deeply to our community, and we learned some very valuable lessons about authentic work.