Skip to Main Content
Wenatchee

Lincoln Students Get Hands-on at Fishy Festival

Lincoln Students Get Hands-on at Fishy Festival

The Wenatchee River Salmon Festival is held each year to celebrate the return of the salmon to our northwest rivers. The theme of the 2018 festival is “Salmon On the Move!”. This event features an exciting menu of hands-on activities, and “edutainment” gives students a unique opportunity to discover and appreciate the complexities of the natural world and the significance of salmon to people of the northwest. Third-grade classes from around the Wenatchee School District make an annual trip to the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery for this fun and informative festival. 

We tagged along with Kristina Mason and Teresa Heinz's third-grade classes from Lincoln Elementary at the event. This year the students and parent chaperones were able to participate in salmon storytelling, search for aquatic organisms in Icicle Creek, tour the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery and discover the Native American Village and code salmon bots. 

This field experience helps prepare Wenatchee third-graders for learning about the salmon life cycle. A Next Generation Science Standard, students will develop an understanding that organisms have a unique and diverse life cycle but all have common birth, growth, reproduction, and death. During the spring, classrooms will receive salmon eggs which they will grow in tanks and then release back into the river for their next phase of life. 

Salmon Fest is also a primer for Lincoln third-graders to discover the cultures of native peoples. The teachers at Lincoln have developed a Native American unit that starts with exploring the indigenous peoples of the east coast and moves west over the course of the year. “Starting out at Salmon Fest give kids a basic foundational understanding of Native Americans and the important role that salmon play in their culture,” said Kristina Mason. “By the time we get to the Western tribes, the kids can better compare and identify similarities between things like building styles, art, clothing, and tools,” she said. 

The event has become a highly anticipated trip for Wenatchee students during the third grade and is a part of a K-5 series of STEM field experiences coordinated by Wenatchee’s Science Resource Center.

   

Upcoming Events

April 1

Spring Break (No School)

Start: Apr 1, 2024 End: Apr 5, 2024

Multi-Day Event

April 9

Board Meeting

6:00 PM

April 15

Board Workshop

1:00 PM

This site provides information using PDF, visit this link to download the Adobe Acrobat Reader DC software.