Alevins, alevins, alevins! The reports I've received suggest that all our eggs have hatched and that Vermont is full of many new batches of alevins. By the way, how do you say "alevin"? Here's a YouTube video offering the correct pronunciation. Photos from Vermont schools Poultney Elementary I was also pleased to get a number of photos from teachers. On Monday, Keith Harrington, at Poultney Elementary School sent this photo of his breeder basket with its alevin. (Notice the bubbles in the middle of the bottom netting? That usually means that the breeder basket may be a bit too close to the airstone. It's not a big problem unless the netting starts bulging up too high.) Paul Legris, of Cambridge Elementary School, reported that they just had their big hatch last Friday (1/24/20). Schoolhouse Learning Center Those of you who have been in our TIC program in the past will remember the great close-up photography that Schoolhouse Learning Center's Danielle Levine has shared with us. Well she's at it again! Look at these beautiful images! And like many of you, Danielle gets her kids involved in all sorts of interesting and creative activities. Here are photos of her kids while they were making models of--what, Danielle? Embryos? Benson Village School Jeff Walker, sent me this report and these photos from Benson Village School. Lots of cute kids behaving cutely! Hi Joe! Here's some pics of our kindergartners visiting the middle school (and 1st and 2nd graders too) to see the newly-arrived eggs. Love the magnifying glass skills! Development Index (DI) One of our first-time TIC teachers asked me to remind him about DI. This becomes increasingly important as we approach the stage when we can start expecting our fish to "swim up." Here's what I told him. DI stands for Development Index, and really ought to be called Cumulative Development Index. It's a measure of how developed your eggs and alevin are. It starts at zero when the eggs are fertilized and goes up to 100 (more or less) when all fish are feeding. At that point, what used to be called alevin are then called "fry." (We find that the strain of brook trout that we raise actually starts feeding closer to a DI of 85 or 90.) DI increases every day the temperature is above 32 degrees F. There's a table (part of the "Temp and DI record and swim-up calculator") that shows you, depending on what the temperature is, what the constant is that gets added to Cumulative DI. When the tank water temperature is only 35 degrees Fahrenheit, only 0.333 gets added to the Cumulative DI each day; at 45 degrees, 0.815 gets added; and at 55 degrees, the DI jumps by 1.728 each day. More about Redds In my December 30, 2019 blog, I wrote about the "field trip" Janni Jacobs and her Braintree Elementary School students (accompanied by Rudi Ruddell) took to a local river, hoping to find some "redds" AKA trout nests. Well, just today, I got an e-mail from Trout Unlimited reporting on similar "redd hunts" in Michigan. This photo is from that online article. If you click on it, you should be able to read the story. BONUS ALERT: the article includes a link to a free document that is TU's Redd Survey Handbook. (Click on the handbook title to access it.)
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Joe Mark is Lead Facilitator of Vermont's Trout in the Classroom program.In June 2012, I retired after 40 years in higher education, having spent the last 32 years of my career as dean at Castleton. One of the first things I volunteered to do in retirement was to work with a parent-friend to help the Dorset School, where his kids and my Vermont grandkids attend, start a TIC program. Gradually that commitment grew into my current role, which is both demanding and highly rewarding. Archives
December 2019
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