The SHS Alternative School students take a field trip to the Girard Science Building and Saco Salmon Restoration and Alliance Hatchery
By Emily Liston, STAFF WRITER
May 9, 2024
On Monday, May 6, students in Sanford High School’s Alternative Education classes recently went on a field trip to the Girard Science Building on the University of New England (UNE) campus, as well as the Saco Salmon Restoration Alliance and Hatchery.
In the Science Building at UNE, the students saw pools of fish that held close to hundreds of endangered atlantic salmon. There were also touch tanks where you could touch sea urchins, crabs, lobsters, and much more.
“What I liked seeing was my students interact with the college professor and graduate students, and asking questions to people that are doing real time research,” said Chris Jeney, Alternative Education Science teacher.
The Alternative Education Marine Science class worked on a project called the salmon restoration project. About 200 salmon eggs were delivered to the classroom, and the students got to see those salmon eggs develop over the course of two months. And soon, the eggs will be picked up (which are now tiny fish), grow them for about another year/year and a half, and release them to the rivers where they’re supposed to be.
Jeney also added, “The field trip was really just taking what I was explaining to them in class and then seeing it for real. Not just reading it and seeing pictures, but taking the stuff that I’m saying and bringing them to the places. It’s not just something I talk about, it really exists in the world.”
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