North Branch School Releases its Catch

Located in Virginia just south of Afton Mountain on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge, the North Branch School considers experiential education a major part of its guiding philosophy.

One of the school’s current endeavors is providing a Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience (MWEE) for students in grades 5-8. To accomplish this goal they selected the Trout in the Classroom Program as their focus.

During the school year, 40 fifth through eighth graders were actively involved in all aspects of raising the trout, from assembling the tank last fall, to the day of the release in South Fork of the Piney River (part of the James River Watershed) this past April.

The year long study was launched with students examining the geography of the local watershed. They learned to read topographic maps by tracing the major waterways in Virginia.

Then they studied water quality parameters by monitoring both their classroom trout tank and a local stream in the field by using the Virginia Save Our Streams protocol.

North Branch’s remaining 70 kindergarten through fourth grade students also participated in the project though regularly visits to the trout tank to sketch the trout in various stages of the life cycle. Younger students conducted demonstrations and experiments and record data with the older students.

It is science teacher Maggie Buchanan’s hope that the MWEE project will increase the students’ understanding of what it takes to keep the local watershed healthy and thriving. Support for the project was provided by Dominion Power and several local natural resource agencies.

Additional Resources:
Trout in the Classroom - Trout Unlimited
North Branch School Website
Fish Related Teaching Resources - Bay Backpack