On Tuesday 11 March we released our trout into the wild. In the morning we carried out our final checks. We made sure that all classes who wanted to had seen the trout before they left. We then visited as a class and got our photos taken beside the hatchery. Sadly, another two trout had died, which took our total to 30 dead eggs/alevin. That meant we were releasing approximately 170 trout.
During our lunchtime, Caroline captured our trout and put around 5 trout into each tub for us to release. When we arrived back from our lunch she was waiting for us in the classroom. At this point some of us started to feel quite sad and emotional because we would no longer be able to look after our trout. We would miss following the rota to see what duties needed to be performed. We also felt quite excited because we were finally releasing our trout – what we had been working towards for five weeks.
It was a beautiful sunny day and we walked to the ABC park. It was lovely to see so many of our parents and carers waiting for us at the park. Caroline helped us to get into groups of three and the first group was called forward to release their trout. If we were wearing wellies we could stand in the burn. We then had to open our tubs and gently put the tubs into the water. We then tipped the tubs slightly which allowed the waters to mix and many of our trout disappeared very quickly. A few of us were lucky enough to see our trout swim off but many were just too quick for us!
We have really loved this topic and will be sharing our thoughts with the rest of our school. We would also like to share our work with other schools who have not yet been involved in this topic. We really hope to do something similar to this again.
Today we were visited by Mr Orr, who was able to demonstrate the gutting and filleting of a fish for us. We were a little anxious at first but from the pictures taken you will see we were all quite fascinated. Mr Orr was very knowledgeable and was able to answer all of the questions we had for him.
We saw the internal organs, including the heart during this process. There was only a small amount of blood, much less than we had expected. We were able to see the liver, lungs and the brain. We also examined the eye ball at Chloe’s request!!!!
We loved the experience and are very grateful to Mr Orr for showing us so much – we would do it again!
The gardening club has been very busy researching seasonal vegetables and designing garden layouts. They also met with the site manager of our new extension to discuss the idea of redesigning the school garden. St Mark’s has now been approved for a new vegetable garden! The design is based on four rectangular raised beds and one flower bed.
Designing the garden
Gardening club representatives met with the pupil council and site manager to show their plans.
The site manager looks at his school plans and agrees to take the garden design to the school architect for approval and design.
The new plan featuring the garden design is agreed by the builders and the authority. The revised plan shows the new garden design.
The gardening club has now started to prepare for our new garden. With the help of three students from St Luke’s we’ve started to sow peas, carrots, spinach and strawberries.
This year Primary 3a were very lucky as we were treated to a special visit from Elvis the elf! Ms Stevenson kindly gave up her free time to read us an exciting story called ‘Elf on the shelf’ where we heard all about Elvis the elf and his ever watchful eyes. We were able to pass on messages to Santa through Elvis and he kindly handed out some chocolate coins, which we all enjoyed very much! Primary 3a would like to say a massive thank you to Niamh’s family for treating us to this lovely morning.
