Forest Knolls Elementary School raises fish in Trout in the Classroom program

"Fish need clean water," said Leslie Argueta, 10, a fifth-grader at Forest Knolls Elementary School in Silver Spring. "We learn how to help them grow from little tiny eggs to big fish." Leslie and her 25 classmates will then put the fully grown fish into a river.

This is the second year that fourth- and fifth-graders at the school have given up recess time to raise trout. The eggs were collected in the fall of 2008, and then last May, Leslie and her classmates released the fish into Little Seneca Creek. This year, 29 Maryland schools, including Forest Knolls, are participating in the program, called Trout in the Classroom.

About 400 elementary schools across the country raise the fish with the help of Trout Unlimited, a group of about 150,000 men and women who love trout, fishing and clean lakes and streams. Jim Greene of the Potomac-Patuxent chapter heads the Maryland program and will soon bring hundreds of rainbow trout eggs to the 55-gallon fish tank Leslie and her friends are preparing at school.

"I learned about trout when I was 8 years old," said Greene, a 79-year-old grandfather who lives in Chevy Chase. "I help because I was afraid that if old-timers like me didn't get involved, the kids won't learn about trout and the importance of keeping our water clean."

"The students really do the work themselves now," said Dave Airozo, Leslie's teacher at Forest Knolls, who is heading the project by sacrificing some of his cafeteria time. "They learn quick how the water filter and chiller work -- trout need cold, clean water to stay healthy -- and they come in on their own time to monitor and correct for nitrates and ammonia levels in the water."

"I just sit at my desk and watch," he says.

And next spring, Leslie and all of the Maryland students will again take buses to celebrate the release of about 2,000 pink rainbow trout into Little Seneca Creek.

"It's so much fun," said Leslie. "I wish my fish at home -- his name is Fishy -- could see the big fish going into the river."

-- Raymond M. Lane