We are well into the school year and our member-volunteers have been busy. As sponsors for Plumas Unified School District (PUSD), Feather River Trout Unlimited provides aquatic aquariums for the Year of the Trout. This is aimed at 4th graders in the district for PUSD and any grade level with Charter schools or other participating schools. Part of our sponsorship, we provide a number of additional activities. Flying tying has been the most common, along with field days where we host a wide variety of fish related activities including casting practice, macro invertebrate identification, a piece from Lorena and Riena who are members of our local tribal group for TEK, art projects, and field observing.
In our gallery down below, we have 2 of our 3 fly tyers, Dave Wood in the first picture, and Mike Kossow assisting a student in the second. Not pictured is Bill Copren. The three of them have been the center of flying tying, who like mentioned, have been the core of our teacher favorite activity. The three travel to the western edge of Plumas country all the way to Sierra county in the east to serve the students.
The following images are from our Traditional Ecological Knowledge presenters, Lorena Gorbet and Reina Rogers. Lorena is a Maidu elder in Greenville and Reina worked with tribal relations. She had an article published in News from Native California while she was with the USDA National Resources Conservation Service. The two of them commonly present with Maidu traditions, music pieces with instruments and songs, and show their acorn baskets. They allow the students to taste the acorns, which when untreated, are quite tart! The images show the presenters at Plumas Charter School, Quincy site, talking with the 3rd-5th graders and also the two 4th grade classes from Quincy Elementary.
We have more TEK and fly tying + field days planned for the 2020 portion of the school year and are very excited to talk about our trout egg arrival come spring.
