POLAND — Fifth-grade students from Poland, Minot and Mechanic Falls participated in the Poland Spring Brookie Buddies Program, an environmental education program that brings the outdoors in, by providing classrooms with brook trout eggs and the necessary tools to care for their new fish friends until they are fit to be released into the natural environment.

In combination with the tanks, the 150 students were introduced to topics such as sustainability.

Recently, students spent a morning with associates from Poland Spring and the Ecology School, releasing their trout fry into Waterhouse Brook and rotating through activities such as Macroinvertebrate Mayhem, Stressor Tag, Stream Survey and Trout Trivia.

The program gives teachers a unique opportunity to get kids interested in trout life cycles and critical issues like water usage and conservation, overfishing and pollution.

People releasing their trout into the brook. Leah Galipeau- Eldridge photo