Links and Resources

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At-Home Education Resources

Salmon in the Classroom

For years, hatcheries and nonprofit partners have been teaming up to offer Salmon in the Classroom. These programs place hatchery fish eggs or young fish fry in aquarium tanks in classrooms across Washington State, so students can watch them grow and learn first hand about their development and lifecycle, before taking part in releasing them into approved rivers and creeks. The resources below are meant to be a supplement to the live, in-school programs that have become so popular with teachers and students alike. The resources below were provided by the Columbia River Gorge National Fish Hatchery Complex.

Supplemental PDF’s

Cascade Fisheries, Wenatchee, WA – Based on their educational programs offered to school districts throughout North Central Washington, the goal of Schools for Salmon Online is to link our communities with salmon recovery through all-ages celebration & exploration of the amazing lives our iconic native fishes! – Visit the Schools for Salmon Online website

Sound Salmon Solutions, Mukilteo, WA – Take a virtual field trip of the Willow Creek Salmon & Watershed Education Center in Edmonds, WA. Learn about the hatchery operations, macroinvertebrates, threats the fish face in the environment, and experience the thrill of releasing salmon into the creek! – Visit the Salmon in Schools website and check out the livestream of their coho salmon fish tank between Jan – March 2021 to watch them develop!

Salmon Fest Curriculum

The Wenatchee River Salmon Festival, a.k.a. Salmon Fest, is an award-winning natural resource education event that offers two days dedicated to 4th and 5th graders around Washington State, and a free community day for the public. The PDF resources below relate to activities found at Salmon Fest and include suggested pre-work for teachers and their students to review prior to attending the event to introduce them to key concepts, vocabulary, and background info.

  • Animal Trackers – Play “Who am I?” and discover the world of animal tracks.
  • Giant Fish Aquarium – Make and color fish flashcards, and learn about the different fish that live in the Columbia River.
  • Gyotaku – What makes a fish a fish? Dive into salmon anatomy with work sheets and find out what makes fish like salmon unique.
  • Raptors Over the Wenatchee – Why do hawks have incredible eyesight? How do owls hear so well? Do an eagle and a falcon fly differently? Discover this and more amazing facts about raptors – and make raptor gliders.
  • Riparian Ramble – Use the post-work activity “I Remember a Riparian Retreat” to imagine yourself  on a virtual riparian stream visit.
  • Web of Life – Learn about the food web as you build your own paper chain in pre-work activity “Don’t break the Chain,” and sing the food chain song “There once was a flower” (to the tune of “There was an old woman who swallowed a fly”).
  • What’s Hatching? – There are some great pre-work activities in here, including drawing your own human lifecycle, learning the salmon lifecycle, and a script for guided imagery of a salmon’s life.

Kids in the Creek

 

World Fish Migration Day 2020

  • Celebrate World Fish Migration Day 2020 with the Dworshak National Fish Hatchery! Learn about the journey steelhead trout, Chinook and coho salmon take from the hatchery to the ocean, then back to their native waters. Watch the video.
  • Find Your Fish! Elwha River Fish Tracking Curriculum – Looking for an engaging distance learning activity?  Follow real fish migrations on the historic Elwha River Restoration Project.  The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is sharing tracking data from tagged Chinook Salmon, Steelhead, Bull Trout, and Pacific Lamprey for students to plot on Google’s free “My Maps” program.  Step into the shoes of fisheries biologists as you enter and compare migrations between fish of the same species as well as between species.  This curriculum is adaptable to a wide range of grade levels as well as subject integration (biology, technology, math, geography, history, government, Native American studies, geology, etc). Download the curriculum packet.

Salmon & Fishing

  • Salmon Anatomy:
  • Snorkel with Wenatchee River Salmon – A Salmon Life Cycle Story
  • Salmon Life Cycle Yoga video – Learn more about the Salmon Life Cycle through this innovative, stress-reducing Salmon Life Cycle Yoga lesson. Created by Katie Woollven, with Columbia Springs Environmental Center, this activity gets kids to connect a motion with a vocabulary word, which means they’ll remember it better. They use their whole brains and their whole bodies to learn while having fun. (For teachers – Individual mp4 files, slideshow, and script)
  • Salmon Coloring Sheet.pdf – Not able to print a whole coloring book? This one-page coloring sheet has all 5 salmon species (plus the extra steelhead) you can find in our region. Print on legal sized paper (8.5″x11″) for more coloring space.
  • Pacific Salmon & Steelhead Coloring Book.pdf – Learn all about the migratory salmon and steelhead that live in our northwest rivers and streams. Follow their lifecycle and find out how humans both study and impact salmon. Good for students in 2nd – 7th grade as well as learners of all ages.
  • Fishing is Fun for Everyone – English.pdf
  • Fishing is Fun for Everyone – Espanol.pdf
  • Fish & Aquatic Conservation Word Searches.pdf
  • The Great Gorge Adventure Activity Book (English/Español) – Race up a stream on the back of a salmon and tunnel underground with mountain beavers to explore wildlife in the Pacific Northwest!
  • ABC’s of Fishing Coloring Book.pdf – A is for … Aquatic! Learn about this and other “fishy” words in our Fishing ABCs coloring book. Good for students in 1st – 4th grade and general fishing enthusiasts!
  • LNFH Junior Fish Biologist – English.pdf – Print out and complete your very own Jr. Fish Biologist book from the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery Visitor Center! Mail your completed activity book to the fish hatchery, and our Visitor Services staff will mail you a prize! Ages 6-14.
  • LNFH Junior Fish Biologist – Espanol.pdf – ¡El Criadero de Peces Nacional de Leavenworth puede estar cerrado, pero puede imprimir y completar su propio libro de Biologos de Peces! Envíe su libro de actividades completo al criadero de peces, y cuando nuestro personal de Servicios al Visitante regrese, le enviaremos un premio. De 6 a 14 años.
  • Angler Academy – Take the great outdoors indoors, with TakeMeFishing.org’s at-home fishing games and activities.
  • Freshwater Fish of America – Learn about 42 species of freshwater fish including coho salmon, largemouth bass, walleye, catfish, northern pike, trout, and more! You can learn the natural history for each species as well as some cool facts. Click here.

Pollinators & Insects

Water

 

Learn About the National Fish Hatchery System

 

Learn More About the Hatcheries We Support

Partners