Beth-Center students raise trout from eggs to stock Ten Mile Creek
Dan Symcheck of Marianna Outdoorsmen Association oversees the stocking of Daniels Run Friday as Bethlehem-Center seventh-graders Ella Boothe, right, and Sarah Paci add trout to the water.
Lynn Henry of Laurel Hill Trout Farm gives Bethlehem-Center seventh-grader A’leaya Medlen fish to stock Friday at Daniels Run.
MARIANNA – Bethlehem-Center Middle School students thought it would be fun to raise trout from eggs in their classroom, seventh-grade student Christian Berish said Friday.
“It only takes them a couple of days to come out of the eggs,” Christian said Friday when his classmates stocked Daniels Run near Marianna with the fingerlings they raised.
However, before the event, some of the tiny fish started to get mean and were “eating each other,” said another student, Allison Dobrinski.
“We’d go in the next day and only have a tail in the tank,” Allison said.
The students learned about how fish behave in nature, fully knowing only one percent of the 108 brown trout they raised will survive in Daniels Run, said their teacher, Tait Klein.
“They’re feeder food. The kids know that,” Klein said.
Klein partnered with the Pennsylvania Trout in the Classroom project, which supplied the eggs, and the Marianna Outdoorsmen Association to bring the outdoors into her classroom. It cost the MOA about $3,200 to supply the tanks, filters and a chiller to keep the water between 52 degrees and 58 degrees.
“It’ll be used again,” Klein said.
District Superintendent Leann Marcolini said she decided to embrace the program in order to give the students more options.
“There’s not a lot to do down here,” Marcolini said. “They studied this all year. They love it.”
The students also stocked 3,400 larger trout the MOA purchased for $15,000, said Jason White, a member of the Marianna group.
“We want to give the kids a brighter future,” White said.