Butler Middle School teacher Dave McCool leads a group of fifth graders across the bridge on the way to release the trout the classed raised into the Connoquenessing Creek.

The Connoquenessing Creek gained more than 100 new inhabitants Thursday afternoon.

A fifth-grade class at Butler Middle School received several hundred trout eggs in mid-February that they raised in a tank in their classroom for months.

They released the fish Thursday, sending them off with a special rendition of the birthday song, “Happy Release Day.”

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“We had the kids take care of them, feed them; student volunteers cleaned the tanks,” said Dave McCool, the fifth-grade teacher at Butler Middle School who hosted the program. “I had been keeping them in the classroom in some 400-gallon tanks.”According to McCool, this is the third year he did the trout-in-the-classroom project, which is funded by the Department of Environmental Protection's 2019 Environmental Education Grants Program, in partnership with the Pennsylvania Council of Trout Unlimited, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and Pennsylvania Trout in the Classroom.McCool said the primary lesson of the unit is about water quality, and its importance in maintaining wildlife.“The program isn't to stock streams,” McCool said. “It's about the importance of watersheds and water quality in streams.”Even though the focus of the program is on water quality, McCool said the life cycle is also part of the lesson. Connoquenessing Creek is a popular fishing spot, and McCool lets his students know that some of the trout may not live long outside the tank.“That's part of the lesson,” McCool said. “We get them as eggs and I tell them only 1 to 2% make it in the wild.”Despite the students knowing the trout have an uncertain future in the wild, they were happily bidding them farewell when scooping them out of a bucket and into the creek.Every student got to release a few trout on their own, and each time their eyes stayed locked on their freed fish as it swam away into the waters.“This is super beautiful to see the fish being released,” said Bailee Ewell, a student in the class.

Butler Middle School teacher Dave McCool watches as fifth-grader Makenzie Clark releases trout into the Connoquenessing Creek on Thursday afternoon. Fifth-graders raised several hundred trout eggs in a tank in their classroom for months.

Butler Middle School teacher Dave McCool and his fifth-graders raised trout in the classroom this year.

Butler Middle School fifth-grader Alexis Myers releases a trout into the Connoquenessing Creek Thursday afternoon. The fish were raised in Dave McCool's class.