As teachers seek ways to keep students engaged in learning, a 30-year-old program offers one solution: raising tanks of trout right in the classroom. May say it’s a perfect blend of hands-on science and fun.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
As schools across the country release students for summer break, some are also releasing fish. Montana Public Radio’s Austin Amestoy brings us this report on a program teaching students about conservation in the classroom and on the water.
AUGGIE ROHRBACH: Go, guys. Go.
(CROSSTALK)
AUGGIE: Eat as many bugs as you can.
AUSTIN AMESTOY, BYLINE: It’s a cloudless May afternoon in the small western Montana town of Hamilton. Under the white peaks of the Bitterroot Mountains, a fourth-grade class cheers. They’re celebrating the release of more than a hundred squirming, young trout into a pond a few miles down the road from their school. That’s where the students raised the rainbow trout, from egg to release. Ten-year-old Auggie Rohrbach (ph) recounts the experience.
AUGGIE: Well, it’s a really amazing program because it was really fun to see the fish, and it was really fun to see them as eggs and see them hatch and all the tiny, tiny – they were so tiny when they were…
AMESTOY: They’re release is the culmination of five months of hands-on science, getting students up close and personal with the aquatic ecosystems in their own backyard. Conservation nonprofit Trout Unlimited sponsors the program called Trout in the Classroom. It reaches more than 120,000 students nationwide, aiming to teach them what it takes to keep watersheds healthy. Montana fisheries biologist Jason Lindstrom supervises the fourth-graders as they release the trout from the shore.
JASON LINDSTROM: It’s really cool ’cause I think it really exposes these kids to the natural world, in a time period of human existence where the natural world keeps seemingly getting farther and farther away from kids.
AMESTOY: Trout in the Classroom keeps the natural world close at Daly Elementary School, just a few feet away from desks. Back in March, the students were hard at work, caring for their school of tiny trout in a 50-gallon tank humming away on a counter.
SUNNI STUBER: Ammonia is next. So we’re going to do eight drops of bottle one. OK.
AMESTOY: Teacher Sunni Stuber helped her class check the tank’s water quality. Droplet by droplet, she filled a small test tube as her class counted.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: One, two, three, four, five, five, six, seven, eight.
AMESTOY: Her fourth-graders also assisted with a water change.
(SOUNDBITE OF WATER SPLASHING)
AMESTOY: It’s Stuber’s first year with Trout in the Classroom. Her sister teaches high school science nearby and has been raising trout for half a decade. Stuber says her students love feeding the fish and giving them names, but they also learn to check ammonia and nitrate levels and the tank’s pH balance. Stuber says the best part is watching her students light up as they work.
STUBER: Engagement is huge in teaching. And finding ways to get them involved in the learning just goes so far.
AMESTOY: Back at the pond in Hamilton, Trout Unlimited’s education manager Cecily Nordstrom says the program is an investment in the future of the students and the fish. Sport fishing is a billion-dollar industry in Montana, but its native trout species are under threat from warming waters and low flows. Nordstrom hopes the next time the students cast a line, they’ll be thinking about the lessons they learned here.
CECILY NORDSTROM: But it’s not just anglers. It’s these ecosystems. Whether you live out here in Montana or in New York City, they’re critical to life for both pleasure and survival.
AMESTOY: Local chapters of Trout Unlimited partner with schools and provide them with tanks, water chillers, aerators and chemicals. The eggs usually come from local hatcheries, and the fish are released in local waterways.
(CROSSTALK)
AUGGIE: Adios, fishies. Adios.
AMESTOY: Jason Lindstrom, the fisheries biologist, says most won’t survive, but that’s all right. They’ll still play a crucial role in the ecosystem, feeding predators like larger fish and birds.
For NPR News in Hamilton, Montana, I’m Austin Amestoy.
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Austin Amestoy 2026-05-30 11:42:00
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