Colton seventh graders raise steelhead for release

You can’t touch them, you can’t eat them, and you can’t tap the tank. Still, the 91 little steelhead swimming in the 50-gallon tank in a classroom in Colton are mesmerizing the students.

“We take out the dead ones and we do some water testing to see how the water is affecting them,” said seventh-grade student Phil Niehenke.

Niehenke is one of 20 Colton students in Eric Nordquist’s seventh grade science class. Nordquist, for the sixth year in a row, is raising a batch of 100 steelhead provided by the Dworshak fish hatchery at Orofino.

The class raises the steelhead from eggs to about two inches, then releases them into the Clearwater River in the spring. The fish are in the classroom for more than 10 weeks.

During their months with the fish, the students learn about life cycles, stream care, fish anatomy, and water quality.

“We do a lot of things with stream health and stream surveying- finding out about bugs. I’m a fly fisherman, so I like to teach them about bugs,” Nordquist said.

In April, workers from the fish hatchery will bring down two dead, adult steelhead for the students to dissect, rounding out their knowledge of fish anatomy.

Niehenke said he likes to net out the dead fish in the tank- nine so far this year.

Nordquist said his students take an extra interest in the hands-on activity of caring for their steelhead.

“The kids get wet. They put on goggles and gloves and work with chemicals. Any time you do hands-on stuff, kids are much more interested in that than just book work,” Nordquist said.

Water from the tank spills out routinely as students clean the tank once a week.

“At least once a week we clean the tank, siphon a third or a half of the water out and then replace it. Sometimes we siphon the fish out accidentally,” Nordquist said.

They do quite a bit of mopping, he added.

The science teacher caught wind of the program six years ago while at a conference in Lewiston. The Dworshak staff were offering a program that provided steelhead eggs, a tank, chemicals that keep the aquarium water healthy for fish, and a lengthy educational unit for students.

Nordquist noted his seventh grade students are older than the typical classroom which raises the fish. Generally fourth or fifth graders are enrolled in the project.

The only slip-up he could recall was the first year of raising the steelhead. Ten eggs hatched into misshapen fish, some with two heads.

“They came out with two heads. It was an oddity. It was really cool. Obviously they didn’t last,” Nordquist laughed.