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Kindergartners from DaVinci Academy released rainbow trout they'd raised from eggs into the Ogden River on Friday, under supervision from Utah's Division of Wildlife Resources and conservation group Trout Unlimited.

The class started out with 200 eggs, donated along with food by DWR and Trout Unlimited, and teacher Eleanor Sather received a $1,500 grant from the STEM Action Center to buy a 55-gallon tank and other supplies. As they normally swim in cool waters, the trout needed a classroom home equipped with a special chiller to keep the water at 51 degrees.

More than 100 fish survived their months at the charter school, a ratio that Sather said DWR found impressive.

Her students observed the fish over their stages of development and were able to argue the finer points of whether a fish had reached the fry stage or was still a larval.

That's part of her goal as an kindergarten educator — starting kids wondering and asking questions, and learning how to articulate their points.

"People sometimes underestimate their abilities," she said. "But they often have more observations than older kids — they're not afraid to talk about what they see; they're not so worried about being wrong."

Though Sather came prepared with tissues — her students had become attached to the fish as they grew, giving some of them names — the release was tear-free.

Now that her classroom is set up with a proper trout habitat and the exercise has proven not to be traumatizing, Sather says she plans to continue raising and releasing trout in years to come.

—Rachel Piper