our FIELD TRIPS

The fun thing about doing homeschooling is we can have as many field trips as offered. Our first one we did last week. We went to the Recycling Center, where the kids got to see how they crush boxes and such and put them into bails. We learned what we could recycle and where to take it. It was kind of fun to go on a Field trip and not having to worry about other peoples kids. Yesterday we went to Spring Creek to learn about the Salmon Life Cycle. On the way there I got a tad bit lost, but we turned around at Bradley-Kepler Park. This is the same park that I took my cousin to when we first got here. If you see the mountains in the distance you'll see our termination dust(snow), These are also our beautiful fall trees. We've learned some of the phrases here in Alaska.....another important thing to know is there aren't any snowmobiles, they're called snow machines. People will look at you like your retarded if you say snowmobile. Back to our field trip.... so when we actually found the place Kurt tried taking Bridger to the port-a-potty, Bridger wouldn't go in it, because it had blue stuff in the toilet. He was afraid that something was going to reach out of it and grab him....He's now graduated to a standing position while he pee's. That's another funny story. After the lack of peeing being done away from home, we walked down the road to the creek where we would learn that the Salmon will come back to the spot where they were born to spawn and die. This first picture if you look in the creek there is a fin of a Salmon. Bridger called it a shark :). While we were waiting we looked all over and could see old Salmon waiting to either spawn or die. After we learned about 5 kinds of Salmon......Chum(Keta, used for feeding dogs), Sockeye (Red), Chinook (King), Coho (Silver), pink(Humpy). We learned about the life cycle of the Salmon. Then we got to see them fertilize some salmon eggs. The guy in the picture pulled a female and a male (alive) behind him out of the netting. He took them away from the crowd and made them so they didn't wiggle anymore........I wonder what he did with them???? lol, He used his fisher beater and killed them. At least he didn't do it in front of our families. We had 26 families ( Mom's and kids). We were there with other families in the IDEA program. After he "took care of" them, he brought them out one at a time, they had some kids help split the salmon open and they dropped the eggs into a pitcher.... After they got the eggs in a pitcher they got the male and slid their hands up and down it's belly and sprayed out "milt" very interesting part.....Our kids just learned fish mating 101...we learned that the milt isn't alive until it hits the water, because when the female puts her eggs on the bottom of the stream the male comes and sprays his milt on them, that's when they are fertilized.... As this mom in the picture took the pitcher and added the water to it, we all sang happy birthday to the eggs lol. That's the moment they became fertilized. So in a sense these eggs were mixed in a pitcher. lol, I know kids that have been mixed in a dish..... Then the after these little eggs were fertilized, the fish and game instructor flushed the left over milt from the water so we could see the eggs. Out of this entire pitcher of eggs only 2 of these will become full grown and return to this stream where they started their lives. This was a really fun field trip. Learning of all the different kinds of Salmon, and how they start life and live, and return to create new life....This was a great learning experience.