Education Standards
Salmon Life Cycle Activity
Overview
Students model the life cycle of a salmon by moving from station to station following directions they receive on the station cards. They experience the challenges, both natural and human-caused, that salmon face.
Salmon Life Cycle Activity
| Grade | 3 |
| Number of Students | 15-30 |
| Lesson Duration | 45-60 min |
| Location | Outside area or trail |
Adapted from the Salmon Life Cycle Game by the Campbell Creek Science Center. Retrieved from blm.gov/CCSC
Summary
Students model the life cycle of a salmon by moving from station to station following directions they receive on the station cards. They experience the challenges, both natural and human-caused, that salmon face.
Subject
Salmon life cycle and habitat needs / Environmental science / Climate change impacts / Human activity
Objectives
Students will:
- Understand the stages of the salmon life cycle through modeling.
- Examine the challenges that salmon face throughout their life cycle.
- Explore what salmon need to survive in their varied habitats.
- Identify and think critically about positive and negative human impacts on salmon.
Materials
- Printed game signs (attached) laminated or in sheet protectors (optional to put them on stakes)
- Materials to represent things salmon interact with, which could include hula hoops, rope/string, dots, cones, small items for “food” (i.e., tokens, popsicle sticks, or natural materials such as pinecones or rocks), containers to put “food” in, jump ropes, pool noodles, etc.
- Optional to use dice for the activity on cards 1, 8, and 14
Background
Salmon Life Cycle
- Egg – in a freshwater stream, a female salmon lays 2,000-5,000 eggs in a redd, which a male fertilizes. The eggs hatch after about a month.
- Alevin – after hatching, the tiny salmon stay near their redd for a couple of months and get their nutrients from their yolk sac.
- Fry – the salmon grow bigger and develop parr marks. They emerge from the gravel, traveling further from their redd and eating macroinvertebrates. The five salmon species remain in this stage for different amounts of time.
- Smolt – the salmon migrate downstream toward the ocean and spend time in the estuary. Their bodies change to adjust to salt water in a process called smoltification.
- Sea-run Adult – the full-grown salmon migrate to the ocean to find food (e.g., fish, shrimp, krill, octopus, and squid) where they spend 18 months to eight years, depending on the species, and can travel thousands of miles.
- Spawning Adult – salmon use all their energy to journey back to the stream they hatched into spawn. On average, only two salmon from a redd make it back to spawn.
- Death – after spawning, the salmon die, supplying the river habitat with nutrients for the next generation of salmon that will someday return to continue the cycle.
Additional resources on the salmon life cycle: The Salmon Life Cycle - Olympic National Park (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)
5 Types of Pacific Salmon
Salmon Threats
Predators:
Salmon have different predators at each stage of their life cycle.
- Eggs: Birds and fish
- Alevin: Birds and fish
- Fry: Racoons, snakes, otters, birds, and fish
- Smolt: Racoons, seals, birds, and fish
- Sea-run Adults: Whales, dolphins, seals, fish, and sea lions
- Spawning Adults: Bears, seals, and birds such as Eagles
Water Quality:
Poor water quality typically results from human activity throughout the watershed that pollutes waterways. Pollutants and contaminants (such as garbage and chemicals) in the water affect salmon growth, health, and vulnerability as well as their habitat and food sources.
Human impacts:
- Direct disturbance by walking through streams can damage redds and the eggs in them.
- Not picking up dog poop can result in bacteria and pollutants getting into the water and affecting salmon survival.
- Polluting through fossil fuel burning (from transportation, housing, industrial and commercial sectors, etc.) resulting in harmful runoff in waterways and causes climate change impacts including extreme water flows from changing rainfall and melting glaciers, ocean acidification, temperature changes, changing vegetation cover, food chain impacts, etc. Additional resources on the impact climate change has on salmon: Pacific Salmon Climate Vulnerability | NOAA Fisheries
- Littering, which clogs waterways and leaches chemicals into the water.
- Removing native plants that provide the 3 C’s (see term list definition), protection from predators, large woody debris for resting places, and leaves for macroinvertebrates that salmon fry eat.
- Introducing invasive plant species that take over native plants and are harmful to salmon and the environment. Invasive animal species also compete with salmon.
- Overfishing resulting in a decline of salmon populations.
- Modifying waterways—which affects salmon habitat and food sources— as well as creating migration barriers such as dams, culverts, or narrow river sections that constrict water flow.
Positive human impacts
- Properly dispose of garbage and animal poop to prevent them from getting into waterways. Additionally, put in natural buffers such as native plants to prevent harmful runoff and keep pets and livestock away from water.
- Restoration projects, such as planting native plants, removing invasive species, replacing culverts with bridges, and picking up garbage and dog poop.
- Reduce fossil fuel emissions and chemical usage through sustainable choices to keep the air and water clean. Additionally, disposing of chemicals properly (never down storm drains).
- Conserve water and energy.
- Reduce, reuse, recycle, compost.
- Be careful not to disturb wetlands and riparian zones.
- Support systematic change to protect salmon, such as policies to reduce fossil fuel emissions and promote sustainable harvests of salmon.
- Additional resources on positive human impacts: How to Help - State of Salmon (wa.gov)
Terms list (the bolded terms on the signs are defined below for your reference):
- Angler – a person who fishes with a fishing rod.
- Climate change – long-term changes in climate, weather, and temperature patterns. This occurs naturally and is also driven by human activity (I.e. burning fossil fuels that increase the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere). Human-caused climate change is disrupting the usual balance of nature by increasing temperatures, melting glaciers, reducing polar ice, raising sea levels, creating more extreme weather, and changing cloud and vegetation cover.
- Commercial fishing – catching fish for commercial profit.
- Dissolved oxygen – a measure of the amount of oxygen in water, or the amount of oxygen available for aquatic organisms.
- Engineered log jam – man-made structures in waterways that replicate naturally occurring log jams, or the accumulation of large wood across a river or stream. Log jams help salmon by providing resting places, habitat and food diversity, shade for cold water, stabilized banks, and protection from predators.
- Erosion – an area of the stream bank that has fallen or slid into the stream, or an area that has been cut away by the stream.
- Estuary – the place where the ocean and river meet, causing saltwater and freshwater to mix.
- Invasive plants – plants that aren’t originally from an area but were introduced by humans (intentionally or accidentally) or natural pathways (wind, currents, etc.). They don’t work harmoniously with the ecosystem but instead grow out of control because they have no natural competitors, causing harm to the local environment and economy.
- Large woody debris – sticks and logs in the water that create calm pools and hiding places for salmon.
- Macroinvertebrates – insects that are big enough to see without a microscope, don’t have backbones, and spend at least part of their time in water. Macroinvertebrates are the main food source for salmon at the fry life stage. • Migrate - moving from one region or habitat to another.
- Native plants – plants that are indigenous to an area and co-exist well with the ecosystem. Native plants provide the 3 C’s for salmon: cold, clean, and clear water. They also provide leaves for macroinvertebrates, which fry eat, as well as large woody debris that creates resting places and protection for salmon.
- Ocean acidification – when the ocean’s pH lowers due to increased carbon dioxide absorption.
- Parr marks – dark bands on the side of salmon fry’s bodies that provide camouflage to hide from predators.
- Pollutants – substances that harm the environment and organisms. • Redd – a salmon nest in the gravel of a steam created when a female salmon digs up gravel with their tail.
- Restoration – to improve something to a previous condition.
- Riparian zone – an area of land bordering a stream.
- Spawn - to release eggs. Salmon spawning occurs when females deposit eggs in redds, which males then fertilize.
- Turbidity – a measure of the amount of sediment in water, or how clear the water is.
- Watershed – an area of land that drains to a common body of water.
- Weir - a low river dam intended to raise water levels or regulate flow.
- 3 C’s - cold, clean, and clear water that salmon need to survive. Native plants provide the 3 C’s by creating shade that keeps water cold, filtering out pollution with their roots to keep it clean, and preventing erosion by holding dirt in place with their roots to keep it clear. Cold water holds more oxygen for salmon to breathe and is vital at many stages of the life cycle. Salmon need clean water so that they don’t intake pollutants that make them sick. They also need water that is clear of dirt, which makes it hard to see and breathe.
Set up
- Print out the 22 game signs and cut them along the dotted lines.
- Organize them in order from 1 to 22 and set them up chronologically.
- Put the signs in sheet protectors or laminate them to be more durable.
- Game cards can be put on stakes – if desired.
- Set out the game cards in the area that will be used ahead of time to minimize distraction.
Procedure
Introduction:
- Tell students that they will be salmon going through the salmon life cycle and trying to survive the challenges they will face along the way.
- Ask students if they can identify any threats that salmon face during their life cycle. Examples are listed in the background section above.
- Highlight the stages of the salmon life cycle and reinforce the concept that threats exist throughout.
Activity:
- Have students begin individually or as a group at sign 1 as if they are salmon.
- Students will follow the signs according to the prompts on each sign through the entire life cycle. If the students get to a sign where they die, they must follow the directions by beginning again at the sign.
- Once students complete their journey at sign 22, they can play again by returning to sign
- Alternatively, students can gather at the end for the concluding discussion or complete a given activity (see Extensions).
- There are three signs where students pick which card to go to next (signs 1, 8, and 14). The teacher can decide how students pick this: roll a dice, student choice, create a spinner, rock paper scissors, etc.
- Optionally, the teacher can check in with students (individually or as a whole) at signs 8, 14, and 22 to check their progress, discuss how the population of salmon is doing, or look ahead to the next life cycle stage.
Conclusion:
1. Ask students to tell a story of their journey in a class discussion.
- What were the different types of threats you faced?
- Did you die and have to start over?
- What seemed to be the biggest threat you faced?
- How did the threats change at the different life cycle stages?
- What helped you survive?
- How did you feel while on your salmon journey?
2. Think critically about positive and negative human impacts.
- What human activities do you think are affecting our local salmon?
- What are some ideas of things you think we can do to be better stewards of the salmon in our watershed—individually and collectively?
- Can you identify a negative human impact and how it is a threat to salmon?
- How do you think human activity has impacted salmon populations over time?
- How did humans help you on your journey? How can we increase those actions that protect salmon?
- How do you think salmon loss impacts the environment and people?
- What would happen if average temperatures increased several degrees, there was an oil spill, a landfill’s chemicals leached into the groundwater, overfishing policies were lifted, invasive species outcompeted many of the native plants, etc.?
3. Optional activity: Have students write or draw their salmon journey.
Prompt: You have been learning about the salmon life cycle and things that affect their survival. Write a story (or draw pictures) about your experience being a salmon in our activity, including where you went and what happened to you along the way. Use examples from the activity to help the reader understand the human and natural factors that affect salmon survival.
Extensions/Modifications
Ideas for modifying the lesson
- For students grade K-3, the activity can be done in groups, facilitated and led by a teacher. Go over terms with students before beginning the activity and focus on the pictures on the signs and how they help or hurt salmon.
- For students grade 4-12, the activity can be done individually or in pairs. Students can be given questions to think about as they move through the life cycle that they will answer at the end, such as coming up with a creative solution to one of the sign’s threats to salmon, comparing the life cycle to that of other animals, considering what would happen to salmon in different scenarios, or identifying the specific ways a human activity might impact salmon.
- Scenarios to consider: average temperatures increase several degrees, an oil spill occurs, a landfill’s chemicals leach into the groundwater, overfishing policies are lifted, invasive species out-compete many of the native plants, etc.
- Potential to adjust information for local watershed.
Next Generation Science Standards
| Performance Expectation | ||
| 3-LS1-1: Develop models to describe that some organisms have unique and diverse life cycles but all have in common birth, growth, reproduction, and death. 3-LS4-3: Construct an argument that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all. 3-LS4-4: Make a claim about the merit of a solution to a problem caused when the environment changes and the types of plants and animals that live there may change. 4-LS1-1: Construct an argument that plants and animals have internal and external structures that function to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction. 5-ESS3-1: Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth’s resources and environment. | ||
| Scientific and Engineering Practices | Disciplinary Core Ideas | Crosscutting Concepts |
| ▪ Developing and Using Models ▪ Constucting Explanations and Designing Solutions ▪ Engaging in Argument from Evidence ▪ Analyzing and Interpreting Data | ▪ LS1.A: Structure and Function ▪ LS1.B: Growth and Development of Organisms ▪ LS2.C: Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience ▪ ESS3.C: Human Impacts on Earth Systems | ▪ Patterns ▪ Systems and System Models ▪ Cause and Effect: Mechanism and Explanation |
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