SEEDS After School students at Rapid City Elementary escorted their classroom Nme (Lake Sturgeon in Anishinaabemowin) to the Black River.

They named the juvenile sturgeon  “Bubbles” and supported the fingerling’s growth until the fish grew close to a foot in length. In the wild, Bubbles will hopefully grow to eight feet and weigh 300 pounds!

This project was a collaboration between SEEDS and the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians (LTBB), the Grand Traverse Stewardship Initiative, and Rapid City Elementary to foster the Nme fingerling. One of the best outcomes was sharing the historical and cultural significance of Nme to the Anishinaabek peoples and to this region through time.

The students toured the Sturgeon Hatchery, learning about the sturgeon lifecycle. Perhaps most exciting of all, they got to see a four-and-a-half foot sturgeon in the river!

The unique project connects Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) with school science, technology, and math goals. Rapid City kids were the youngest stewards to-date to follow the stringent rules for sturgeon fingerling stewardship including managing multiple tank parameters.