Merrill High School agriculture education teacher Brigid Reimann was presented with the Genoa National Fish Hatchery’s annual Conservation Steward Award.
This award is generally given to a local area educator who has excelled in instilling a conservation ethic in the upcoming generation. Reimann has been instrumental in getting the hatchery’s Sturgeon in a classroom program instituted in Merrill High School. She also led development of a small scale aquaculture system using surplus hatchery tanks and station culture expertise to begin teaching aquaculture skills to the MHS Agricultural Program.
Reimann and her students raised perch from fry to over six inches during the 2013-2014 school year. Genoa National Fish Hatchery supplied the fish and the tanks.
Reimann’s classroom also features and tank of trout that were hatched from eggs in the classroom.
While student teaching in Tomah, Reimann worked with Genoa National Fish Hatchery to initiate the Sturgeon in the Classroom project, which has been expanded to elementary and middle schools where lake sturgeon are being raised in the classrooms.
Merrill High School became the pilot school for Perch in the Classroom last fall, again at Reimann’s urging. Students helped set up the tanks and by November the system was up and running and the fish were thriving.