MN Trout in the Classroom teachers are the type of teachers that you would want your children and grandchildren to have as they move through their K-12 years. These teachers are excited and passionate individuals that work hard to provide engaging, hands on learning opportunities like TIC for their students. This program is a major time commitment in addition to the many other things teachers are responsible for during the school year.

Even with the time commitment and stress of the first few years due to the steep learning curve, they typically only leave the program due to retirement, or moving to a different school or subject that doesn’t work with TIC. Only a few schools during the last 7 years have left because they couldn’t keep fish alive or just decided it wasn’t for them. The majority love it and their students love it too, which is why we continue to grow each year, and I have 30 teachers on a list each spring that want to join!

One of the requirements for program participation is that all teachers must submit an end of year report. Each year as I read through these reports, I am amazed by what teachers are doing with TIC in their classrooms, schools, and communities. This year educators were able to use TIC as an entry point for learning about agricultural impacts on water, aquaponics, trout stream restoration and connecting with local waterways, and much, much more. Here are a few excerpts from reports that highlight the amazing variety of ways that TIC can be integrated into classroom and outdoor learning.

This is a wonderful program that has become a staple in our Ag dept. at Humboldt. With as many cultures and languages as we have the visual and hands-on stimulation with the activities we are able to do with these fish are endless. We are very thankful for the TIC program and are proud to continue.

Humboldt High School, St. Paul

This concludes our fifth year as a participant in the Trout in the Classroom program. [This year] we were able to engage over 125 5th grade students in the care of the fish and MNTU activities. Students engaged in more than a dozen math, science, reading, writing, art, technology or PE related trout activities. We explored aquaponics and grew green beans, kale and mint on the water surface and next year we hope to expand and better our efforts!

Sunset Hill Elementary, Plymouth

We have several highlights to report for Cedar Park Elementary. First, the students loved estimating the total number of eggs received and used their math skills to calculate accurate data and learn the importance of accuracy and precision in our science work. Students enjoyed observing and learning about each part of the trout life cycle. We made observations 3 times over the course of our study as well as feeding station times and water quality testing times. Our biggest highlight, besides the amazing trout release of course, was the trout stream mitigation project we did where students had to figure out the needs of trout in their ecosystem and mitigate a stream in a stream table model to rectify what is not available to trout that should be and repair any damages like erosion.

Cedar Park Elementary STEM School, Apple Valley

I was able to incorporate the trout into the earth science curriculum this year by looking at the water quality of Grindstone Lake. We used the Pine County Soil and Water Conservation District website and pulled up the report on the lake to learn more about Grindstone Lake’s condition specifically.

East Central Schools, Finlayson

We are looking for TIC classroom ambassadors for the 2025-26 school year! Go to this registration link for more information on partnering with a TIC school to assist with their TIC journey throughout the school year (training provided!). If you’d like to volunteer with MNTU youth education or have questions about volunteering, please contact me at mntu.education@gmail.com.