Dozens of Parley’s Park Elementary School third graders gathered at the Deer Valley ponds on Monday to celebrate a successful semester of raising trout by finally releasing the fish into the local ecosystem after months of hard work.
Trout in the Classroom is a nationwide program sponsored by Trout Unlimited, an educational nonprofit dedicated to the conservation, preservation and expansion of cold water fisheries in the United States. The program started about 10 years ago with only a few schools participating. Utah now has the most participating schools per capita than any other state with 72 schools taking part, including seven schools in Summit and Wasatch counties.
The goal is to educate students about the importance of conservation and the lifecycle of fish as part of their science curriculum. Different schools across the state participate at varying grade levels, but Parley’s Park Elementary teacher Kathleen Tarmina said hatching and raising trout has been a great way to give her third graders hands-on experience with concepts she would already be teaching at that age.
It also serves as an opportunity to connect students with the outdoors, a factor that’s become increasingly important as kids grow up in a more technology-oriented world than previous generations.
Tarmina, a self-proclaimed animal lover, has always had pets in her classroom. She said class pets build camaraderie and help students with anxiety, which is why she jumped at the chance to join the Trout in the Classroom program eight years ago.
Now, raising trout is a third grade tradition for Parley’s Park families.
“This is our second time with a kid in Ms. Tarmina’s class, so we’ve been able to do this twice now,” said Maren Mullin, a parent who attended the release party with her husband, Matt. “Our daughter Faye has been naming the fish and checking up on specific ones. They love watching all the different stages of life, so today’s a big day.”
Faye and groups of other third grade students lined up on the shore of the pond around 1 p.m., ready to say goodbye to their classroom project. At the front of the line, volunteers crouched next to an ice cooler full of water.
Inside were the trout, approximately two to three inches in length.
Trout eggs are sorted into cups for transport in January, before arriving at Parley’s Park Elementary. Credit: Clayton Steward/Park Record 
Program coordinator David Leta, right, helps to sort the eggs into smaller cups for transport at the egg distribution event in Salt Lake City in January. Classrooms across the state received trout eggs, including Parley’s Park Elementary. Credit: Clayton Steward/Park Record 
The tank in Ms. Tarmina’s third grade classroom looks empty at the end of January, but the trout had just hatched and were being kept in a small basket at the top of the tank. Credit: Clayton Steward/Park Record 
Freshly hatched trout still carry part of their eggs until they begin eating food. Credit: Clayton Steward/Park Record 
A student feeds the fish in the classroom at Parley’s Park Elementary in March. Credit: Clayton Steward/Park Record 
The trout in the classroom in March, about two months before their release date. Credit: Clayton Steward/Park Record 
A student displays a trout right before releasing it into the pond at Deer Valley on Monday. Credit: Clayton Steward/Park Record
Teachers and volunteers helped each individual student scoop a fish into a plastic cup, and the kids were then allowed to run down to the shoreline to release their trout with only one major rule: don’t let the fish go for a “high dive.”
Instead, the students were directed to dip their cups into the water and let the fish swim out on its own or, for those who wanted to be more involved in the process, gently dump the water into the pond about one inch above the water level.
Faye, who was dressed in shimmery silver clothes to look like a fish herself in honor of release day, said she liked raising trout because they’re cute and can swim really fast.
“My favorite thing about them is that they stayed in a group and never left each other,” she added.
Trout Unlimited supplies teachers with fish food and fertilized trout eggs, which come from hatcheries approved by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. The hatcheries’ main purpose is to raise and release fish in the spring and summer to replenish fishing spots across the state.
The eggs were delivered to Tarmina’s classroom in early January. The students then spent the next few months learning about the trout’s lifecycle and how to take care of the fish, including feeding.
“It teaches the kids what the fish need and how essential that is, and then there are the skills of fly tying and touching the fish and the fun of it, which is why it’s nice that they get to come out here and have fun with the fish release,” said Tammy Finch, a High Country Fly Fishers volunteer.
Finch has stopped by Tarmina’s third grade classroom once a week for the past five years whenever the annual Trout in the Classroom program is underway. She cleans the fish tank to help keep the trout healthy and assists with releasing the fish in the spring.
“It’s fun to talk to them about the fish, and they always have the classic question of, ‘What are you doing cleaning the tank?’ I tell them it’s like cleaning your cat’s litterbox,” Finch said. “Then I try to explain a little bit, if they have a minute, about how it breaks down the nitrogen, which ultimately kills the fish if we don’t clean it all the time.”
Faye said her class started with 150 eggs, but a big fish named Brutus ate a good number of his peers. Her favorite fish, which she nicknamed Oreo, survived until the end, though, and Faye was excited to release Oreo into the Deer Valley ponds on Monday.
“They start as an egg, and when their egg turns orange, that means they’re ready to hatch,” Faye explained. “But when it’s white and all the other eggs are ready, that means it’s dead.”
She said she doesn’t know if the fish will stay friends once they’re free to explore the pond, but she hopes they stick together like her and her friends at school.
