Fish-Friendly Engineering
Students further their understanding of the salmon life cycle and the human structures and actions that aid in the migration of fish around hydroelectric dams by playing an animated PowerPoint game involving a fish that must climb a fish ladder to get over a dam. They first brainstorm their own ideas, and then learn about existing ways engineers have made dams "friendlier" to migrating fish, before being quizzed as part of the game.
Students investigate the migration of fish around hydroelectric dams
Building dams results in many advantages for humans, and often many disadvantages for wildlife in nearby ecosystems. Getting a living animal past a dam without disrupting its life cycle need to swim upstream to breed is a challenging problem. Engineers are called upon to address this problem and they've come up with many different fish mitigation approaches that better protect the fish that migrate up and down rivers as part of their natural life cycles. Engineers use brainstorming techniques to help them create different and better solutions.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Demonstrate a basic knowledge of the salmon life cycle.
- List the impediments that dams pose to salmon migration.
- Identify three types of structures that engineers have designed to assist salmon in migrating through, over and around hydroelectric dams