Salmon are incredibly important to our local history, our environment, and to the native people of the area. Students had an opportunity to learn about the salmon life cycle and the challenges faced by these amazing fish whose lives take them from the most remote mountain streams to the ocean and back again.
The Northwest has a long standing dependence of hydro power with Bonneville providing power to 80% of the area. We briefly covered the conflict of clean plentiful energy at a cost to the fish population, and the many improvements that have been made to help hydroelectric power and salmon coexist. Students then studied the other types of clean energy that are rapidly replacing fossil fuels.
With a knowledge of salmon and power production, the families from the school met up at the Bonneville fish hatchery and dam.
The display pools at the hatchery were a crowd favorite. The kids enjoyed viewing the amazingly large sturgeon from underwater and feeding rainbow trout.
The Bonneville Fish Hatchery opened in 1909. It predates the dam by 30 years and remains the largest hatchery in the state. Below, Sherilyn and the kids walk past the rearing ponds where thousands of young fish grow until they are large enough for release.
Next, we headed to the dam itself. The kids got to see how they compared in size to a turbine. The new turbines are designed to be more fish friendly.
The kids took part in an interactive demonstration of how power is made and distributed- from the river all the way to your home.
Huge is pretty much the only description for the turbine hall.
We also spent some time watching fish in the fish ladder. It is a unique opportunity to see the fish up close and we learned to identify whether the fish were wild bred or returning hatchery fish. You could spend all day watching these incredible swimmers!
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