Meet Kate Gallagher a Salmon Institue Teacher:

I am the science teacher at RISE Community School in East Oakland. I teach all 12 classes at our school, from kindergarten through 5th grade, for one hour per week in my science classroom. Over 90% of RISE students qualify for the free and reduced price breakfast and lunch program. We are a Title 1 school. Our student body is about 80% Latino and 20% African-American, with small numbers of Asian, Pacific Islander, and Caucasian students.

Last year my 2nd grade students raised rainbow trout from eggs and released the fry into Lake Temescal as part of the California Trout in the Classroom project. I plan to use this grant to take those students, who will be in the third grade, to Redwood Regional Park in Oakland. We will study Redwood Creek, which is a rainbow trout habitat. I will have two classes of third graders, with approximately 25 students in each class.

Activities on the field trip will include: water quality testing; quadrat-based observations of plants and animals in the riparian ecosystem; and benthic macroinvertebrate monitoring with nets. I am planning two field trips, one in the fall and one in the winter after a good rain, to do essentially the same activities. I’m planning a third field trip to the same creek in the spring. Then we will camp overnight to experience the changes that take place after the sun sets and the nocturnal animals become active.

In the 4th grade, these students will have a field trip to the SPAWN office, to learn about the coho salmon and the riparian ecosystems in the Lagunitas Creek watershed. In the 5th grade, these students will learn to be stewards of their local creek, Arroyo Viejo in east Oakland. This is all part of my larger science program to get students involved in the natural world in Oakland and the San Francisco Bay Area.

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RISE – 4th graders at SPAWN

Do you want to join and become a salmon institute teacher? Register here: https://seaturtles.org/headwaterstosea/