Sea Trout in the Classroom

Sea Trout in the Classroom was developed  to give local school pupils an up-close and personal experience with trout populations from rivers local to their school. Three classes from three schools on Skye were visited and SLRT staff gave an interactive presentation on the lice cycle of salmon and trout, what other species are present in our local rivers and what we can do to protect them and their habitats. The classes were each given a clutch of trout eggs along with a tank and other equipment needed to ensure the juvenile fish survived. The pupils had the responsibility of checking the water temperature every day and to alert SLRT staff if anything went wrong. After about a month the eggs hatched and the pupils were able to watch them grow and develop. Once all the eggs had hatches and the fish were deemed to be at a size where they would thrive in the wild, they were released back to the river they originated from. 

Following this, each of the schools got to experience an afternoon of being ecologists. Each class got an electrofishing demonstration and were able to see wild salmonids and eels, they got to do their own kick sampling for invertebrates, and were shown how adhere to biosecurity protocols when travelling between river systems.