The students were awed. By May, the fry will have grown large enough to be released into Taku-Campbell Lake, a landlocked lake inside the city limits. To avoid contact with wild salmon stocks, the fry must be released into a lake that doesn't feed into a stream. As the students observe the development of the salmon eggs for several months, they record what they see and learn in drawings and writing assignments. Each day, they log the water temperature and any physical changes in the eggs in a notebook next to the fish tank.
Computers allow students multiple ways of expressing themselves, the teachers say.
The explorative nature of the Internet and desktop publishing and presentation tools such as Kid Pix Studio or ClarisWorks increases students' motivation, creativity, and problem- solving, they say. Working with Chery Bradley, the school's Title I technology specialist, they have integrated the computer into all aspects of the salmon project. Their students create their drawings and writings on the computer, incorporating recorded narration and a photograph of themselves into a multimedia presentation. But the project doesn't end there. Students will collect their slide shows into one file and, with the help of their teacher, copy it from a computer to videocassettes.