Category: ECO school

It was a sad day. It was time to release the trout that we had looked after since they were just eggs. Dr Girvan said we had done a wonderful job in looking after them and that she had never seen so many survive and be so wriggly. We think it was because we kept the water so cold – we even had the heaters off for the whole 5 weeks. Mr Cain said it was an important part of our John Muir award. Putting more fish back into the river was helping to conserve our local area. We each got a bag of trout fry to carry to the river. Dr Girvan collected all the fish into a bucket and let them go slowly into the river. They quickly disappeared and hid under the stones. She then showed us how to collect a sample from the bottom of the river and we looked for small creatures our trout fry might eat. And then we all got a turn to try it as well. Although it was sad to see our fish go it was good that they got to go back to the real river. And at least we will get our heaters back on too!  By P5

We enjoyed looking after the fish for five weeks and keeping them cool by swapping the ice bottles over.  HannahK.

I enjoyed going in to the  river to find water insects that the fish eat.  We even caught one of our own trout but we set it back free. I can’t believe we let 200 fish out into the river. Thomas.

I could not wait to turn the heating back up but I was still sad when we had to let them free but at maximum about ten died so we were very happy with the amount that survived.  Josie s-f

I really en joyed looking after the fish. I was really suprised how many fish survived during the time. It was awsome letting them out in the river.  Euan S

[nggallery id=46]

We have been continuing with lots of activities for our John Muir award project. Last week we were out in the woods on a scavenger hunt looking for lots of different items like – a smooth piece of tree bark, a shiny holly leaf, evidence of animals, a pine cone smaller than your thumb and lots more. It was fun searching through all the bushes and the mud! Josie S’s group was the winner. They found everything but one thing on the list. We had done a scavenger hunt in the school grounds in September and we talked about how the things we had found this time were different.

Today we were back in the woods but this time we were making dens. We had to build a shelter that would hold all our group (4 or 5 of us) in case we had to survive in the wild. We even had to camouflage it so it would not scare the wildlife. I liked making the dens because you had lots of trees to choose from and lots of equipment. Our group made a stick wall and a back window and two of the boys found a small lizard or newt. It was good to explore and look  for sticks in all different sizes for different parts of the den.

Our fish are still growing. The baby trout are called fry and are using up their yolk sacs. We will be releasing them into the river. This is part of the project about conserving a wild area and we are looking after the river.

By Ellie, Rory, Olivia & Daniel P5.

[nggallery id=45]