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Tuesday,
November 13, 2007 was the official kickoff day for a new “Salmon in the
Schools” program at South
Haven High School. The program provides
fertilized salmon eggs to a high school biology classroom, and the teacher
and students provide the support and care of the eggs until they become fish
3-4 inches long and are released into the Steelheaders’ net pen to begin
their life cycle in the Black River and
Lake Michigan
. The local Steelheader chapter
provided financing for all of the equipment and supplies, but the job of
monitoring and rearing of the salmon belongs to the teacher and students.
The Salmon in the Schools program started in early 2007 with Bud
Potts who consulted with South Haven regarding the Salmon in the Schools
programs that had been sponsored in the Grand Rapids Schools over the past
several years. Bud headed up the effort and still does.
South
Haven then asked Bud to a meeting to explain the program, and a decision was
made to participate. The program
is new to our area, and biology teacher Kevin Powell is very excited to have
this new “live” teaching program available to his classes.
Kevin recently joined the local Chapter and immediately volunteered
to host the program. Mark
Wilson, a local entrepreneur and spouse of a South Haven math teacher, and
Bob Filbrandt of Bob’s Processing in South Haven, got the ball
rolling and both played significant roles in procuring the equipment and
helping to set up the program.
The
students will observe the salmon go thru a series of developmental stages
from egg to fish in the next 4-5 months before they are placed in the net
pen in the
Black River
in mid-April. They will then be
released from the net pen in early May to complete their life cycle in
Lake Michigan
. Powell says, “this program
will help students to learn biological processes as well as to become
acquainted with the fishery and its importance to South Haven as a fishing
and tourist destination.” With
the success of the program at the high school, the local Steelheaders
Chapter hopes to expand the program in the future.
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