In the Pacific Northwest, every kids’ science curriculum includes a Salmon unit. Here are some ideas for activities.

Experiment: Why Salmon Build Redds.

Inspired by this: http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/education/lessonplans-lecons/nid-redd-eng.html

Prep: take 2 plastic takeout trays. On one, label it as #1, draw a circle in one corner, and glue pebbles randomly around, using a hot glue gun. Label the other as #2, glue pebbles on gathered into a little pile with an indentation in the middle – sort of like a donut. Label that as a redd. Put about an inch of water in each tray.

Put out with ~20 – 30 red beads and chopsticks.

Instruction Card: Learn Why Salmon Build Redds. In tray #1, drop a pile of beads in the circle that’s drawn on the tray. Now gently tilt the tray back and forth a few times (being careful not to spill the water). What happens to the beads? Use chopsticks as pretend bird beaks. Could the birds easily eat the eggs? In tray #2, drop a pile of beads in the circle of rocks (the redd). GENTLY tilt the tray back and forth a few times. What happened? Is it different than tray #1? Use the chopsticks to try to pick up eggs. Is it easier or harder than before?

Find a similar activity here.

Salmon Food Chain

Make strips of construction paper. Put out with markers, stapers, tape

Card: Make a “Food Chain”. Take four pieces of paper. Each paper represents a link in the food chain. Write one of these labels on each one. 1st strip: label it either plankton, krill, or insects. 2nd strip: Label it with something that eats the thing you wrote on your first strip: small fish like herring, eels, or squid. 3rd strip: Label it salmon – salmon eat small fish, eels, and squid. 4th strip: Label with something that eats salmon, like bear, eagle, or human. Now make a chain linking these together.

Salmon Life Cycle Craft

Tape two paper plates together. Label them – write stream on one, estuary where they overlap, and ocean on the other Color in the pictures of the stages in the life cycle, then cut out the pictures. Glue the pictures onto the plates. Draw arrows to show the journey the salmon takes.

Foil Fish Craft

Color aluminum foil with Sharpies. (If you want, you can use cotton balls or tissues to smear the sharpie before it dries to get a blended color.) Cut the foil into a fish shape. Set it on top of a cheese grater, or mesh (like the net bags oranges come in) and use your thumb or fingernail to rub it to emboss that pattern onto the fish like fish scales. If you choose, you could mount this on a painting made with watercolors and salt crystals as you see here on FSTD.

Art: Fish Print, Gyotaku

You can get from the grocery store a whole fish (trout or salmon, with head and tail) or get a fish replica (like this or maybe this). Paint a thin layer of paint on the fish. Lay paper on top of the fish. WIth your hands gently press the paper down along the length of the fish. Peel up the paper carefully – you made a fish print!

Culture Note: Today, many people who go fishing like to take photographs of the fish that they catch to show to their friends and family. In Japan, before photographs existed, fishermen would take a print of the fish they caught. This method, called gyotaku, is now an art form in Japan.

Board Game

This is a board game to explore the life cycle of a salmon. One of the learning goals is for kids to realize how many obstacles salmon must overcome to reach the end of the cycle. They should expect to have to go back to start many times – it’s OK when that happens!

Their odds in the game are actually much better than the real odds, shown here:

Outdoor / Large Motor Games

Kids learn about salmon migration through movement.

You can do a salmon scent game on a hike: prep ziplock baggies with two different scents – their “home” scent and “not home”. On the hike, every time they need to make a choice which way to turn, they follow their home scent.

You can do a tag game – first you familiarize them with the path as you tell about the science we’re learning. Then the first round, they do the path from stream to lake to ocean to lake to stream while 2 predators try to tag them out. Then they do it again with four predators. Then again with predators, pollution, and a dam all making their migration more challenging. (Find instructions for a similar game here.)

Song

Song – to “Mary had a little lamb.” I wrote it – it’s not great but better than anything I found… based on idea from https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=71811&inline

Salmon like to lay their eggs, lay their eggs, lay their eggs, salmon like to lay their eggs, in gravel nests called redds.
Alevin swim with their yolk sacs… for 3 weeks after they hatch
Fry start swimming down the stream… and hide from predators
Smolt get ready for the sea… in an estuary
Salmon swim in the deep blue sea… till it’s time to head back home.
Now it’s time to swim upstream… to lay their eggs in a redd.

Books

Peska and the First Salmon Ceremony by Ritchie and Salmon Summer by McMillan – tell of ancient and modern relationship between NW tribes, salmon and cedar. (Those are Amazon affiliate links.