MALVERN, Ark (KTHV) — Students at Magnet Cove High School are raising tilapia in the classroom. It’s all part of a 6 week project for their aquaculture class.

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Magnet Cove teacher Kristyn Sheets saw an opportunity when she came to Magnet Cove two years ago. The school already had a tank system in place for the fish, they just needed a teacher and students willing to get their hands wet.

Sheets says it took off from there. She says, “This is just application of knowledge instead of worksheets and textbooks. When we have all of these toys and all of these hands-on things this is where our classrooms should be.”

Learning by doing; something science has always encouraged students to do and the aquaculture Corey Stanley is liking the innovative style of teaching. “At the start of the year we took notes and stuff about different types of fish. Now, were getting really hands-on. That’s my favorite part about it. I love to study a fish, but hands on is really fun,” says Stanley.

Sheets says, they’re learning a lot in the process. She adds, “This year we’ve set up a project where the students are completely in charge of managing the water quality, they weighed fish on Thursday, they have to monitor all of the feed, so they can figure out feed conversion ratios and percent gain and they’re doing all of that because they have the tools to do that.”

The two large fish tanks are housed within the schools greenhouse and algae is grown as a second crop inside the tanks. Student Dustyn Parker says water quality is the main priority. “I have learned how to do testing for dissolved oxygen, PH levels. I’ve learned that fish don’t eat all the time and they have certain times that they eat. Some days they won’t eat due to the weather and how the weather effects them,” says Parker.

Sheets, says she’s proud of her students and what they’ve accomplished so far. She says, “They might mess up some things and it’s going to be ok, they’re going to learn from it. They’re not going to get a lot of worksheets, they’re not going to get a lot of traditional class work type of grades. They’re going to get grades on if their fish live or die.

Written by

Meredith Mitchell