Imagine you're a newborn, surrounded by an immense family with thousands of siblings. You flourish and grow among one another through the comforts of familiar sights, sounds and smells of home.

As time passes, you and the others begin moving away from your small safe existence, exploring larger, colder and darker environments. Suddenly, you find yourself all alone, everyone you knew is gone. Your world seems bigger and you seem smaller.

Odd-looking strangers give chase and try to eat you! After a few years of growing bigger and stronger in this large world something instinctual provokes a change of present course, you turn and head back to your birthplace.

With every mile you draw closer, exhilaration grows steadily until finally you're exhausted and consumed with the ultimate purpose, seeking to create your own family.

This is the story of the life cycle of a Great Lakes salmon and to date thousands of Michigan students are learning salmon biology through firsthand experiences by raising salmon in their classroom.

Salmon in the Classroom began in the Pacific Northwest where educators worked in conjunction with state and federal fish hatcheries. Teachers and students began rearing live fish from eggs in the classroom as a learning tool in curriculums.

In Michigan, this program was established more than 15 years ago with a handful of teachers and Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Biologist Thomas Rozich, who provided salmon eggs for the classroom and served as a consultant to the teachers.

"In December 1992, I was reading Trout Unlimited's quarterly magazine, which had an article about California's trout and salmon education program for grades K-6," Rozich said. "I asked Kevin Hughes, who then was the third-grade teacher at Arcadia Elementary, if he would be interested in the program if we could supply the fertilized eggs."

Hughes agreed and it turned out to be a tremendous success for his students.

Over the past 16 years, the program increased slowly until a few years ago, when it really began to take off, resulting in participation from schools in the western Upper Peninsula to Detroit.

One of the many reasons for the program's success is the seemingly limitless subject matter that teachers can integrate into their lesson plans through raising salmon. The program can easily cover benchmarks in mathematics, social studies, language and arts, history and, of course, science.

In Rogers City, teacher Holly Wirgau has been involved with the program for several years.

"Salmon in the Classroom greatly enhances my middle-school science curriculum," Wirgau said. "The salmon tank observations frequently are referred to as we go about our daily studies, and are used in data collection and problem-solving skills."

Another advocate is Maria Afflhalter, who teaches at Pellston Middle School.

"Partnering with Michigan Fisheries Visitor Center and the Oden State Fish Hatchery, the Burt Lake Preservation Association and local businesses has made this project a real community-connected learning experience for our students," Afflhalter said.

Although most teachers were satisfied with the informal nature of the program, the sudden increased interest among teachers across the state prompted the DNR to take a closer look at how many classrooms actually were involved and how the department could provide teachers and students with a more meaningful and enriching learning experience.

A questionnaire was mailed to all the participating educators asking how the DNR could best serve the needs of the nearly 60 Michigan schools involved with the program.

"The feedback from teachers was tremendous," said Maureen Jacobs, interpreter at the Oden State Fish Hatchery Visitor Center. "We were able to fold their responses into a formal set of program guidelines, and it allowed us to build a database of schools and their program sponsors, so we could create a network among teachers."

The next step was to create the DNR's first Salmon in the Classroom Curriculum and Activity Guide.

"We combined the excellent teaching talents of our two hatchery visitor center interpreters with the technical expertise of our fish hatchery scientists to provide a great deal of supplemental information and classroom activities to support teachers," said DNR Education and Outreach Manager Kevin Frailey.

In 2007, six teacher workshops were offered in several locations statewide. These workshops helped further establish networking between teachers and stakeholder groups and initiate troubleshooting discussions. These workshop opportunities were well received by teachers and were attended by more than 80 state educators.

"Salmon in the Classroom illustrates just how powerful hands-on learning can be," said Patricia Stewart, chief of DNR's Office of Communications. "It's an awesome program through which the Michigan DNR fosters conservation education. Salmon in the Classroom brings together students, families and local communities. One of the program's benefits is that it gets kids outside, and by studying salmon, their habitat and water quality, students are ultimately becoming conservation stewards ... what can be better than that?"

The program has become so popular so fast that the DNR is in the process of drafting a long-term plan for growth.

Limited numbers of schools may be added each year and schools need to consider the expense of aquariums and other equipment to operate the program successfully.

Yet many conservation organizations have partnered with schools to handle these expenses and these partnerships have also contributed to the program's success.

It won't be long until chinook smolts are released by Michigan students in rivers and streams statewide. That will be an exciting field trip for the students and the fish!

For more information on Salmon in the Classroom, contact Kevin Frailey at fraileyk@michigan.gov.