In three years over 350 children, many of their families from Magnolia and Buena Vista schools, and over 1500 young trout have ventured up the San Luis Rey river valley to several different areas on nine separate field study trips. All sixth grade students at Magnolia raise trout in the classroom from eggs, learn about fish, watersheds, and human impacts on the environment, practice water quality testing, plant and animal identification and mathematics in a variety of simulations and analyses. Then the the students become the biologists during our field experience and apply the data they collect to their knowledge of trout needs to determine habitat suitability. Finally, they release the young trout into the San Luis Rey River. The San Luis Rey River once ran free year round, unencumbered by dams, diversion canal, unregulated wells, Water Districts, dairies, gravel pits and ponds, channelization, city water supply wells, choking exotic plants, and political mitigation disputes.
Riparian areas are the richest environments in variety and diversity of species.
It is our duty within the public trust doctrine to protect our common heritage of streams, lakes, marshlands, and tidelands. We dream that the social and economic value of wetlands can be realized by the preservation, creation and effective use of these natural habitats. By saving the river with enough water, plant and animal life, geology, and history, we can be trading abusive commercial practices for ecotouristic, recreative, and educational goals. Our dream is that we Can Have It All - live in paradise, earn financial reward, enjoy property rights, and encourage diverse habitat in which children and their parents can learn about biology and their environment. Our strategy is to learn and teach the importance of environmental conservation and management so that we can intelligently discuss the problems of river ecology and work toward an informed solution that benefits the whole of mankind and his fragile environment.