Angler Education- Gill Lice

I am in the second week of an "Angler Education" class teaching 3-5 graders about fishing and encouraging young anglers to join the sport of trout fishing. I have taught them the different types of reels and rods, casting, tying fishing knots, giving them a basic understanding of fishing regulations (all of my students now understand what the different color trout streams mean as far as bag limits and minimum size), first aid, water safety, and fish identification. Today, the topic was invasive species and gill lice which are threatening our trout streams here in Wisconsin. I pulled up Len's "Stream of Time" blog and showed an example of what gill lice looks like. The students were so attentive and curious to learn more about gill lice and I even had several students give their input on possible solutions. One of my students told his grandpa who is the head of a local fish and game agency and is bringing it up at the next meeting (he had not heard of gill lice). I also played 10 or so minutes of one of the Len's trout fishing videos developed by Pronghorn productions. Throughout the video, I had to stop it nearly every 30 seconds because I needed to answer a question or a student wanted me to rewind the video so he could hear Len's advice on various fishing practices and strategies. I had a sign-up the first week of class for taking each student and their parent/guardian to an area trout stream. I had 6 of the 21 students bring in their signed slip and after learning about gill lice and watching Len's video, I had an additional 8 students request a sign-up sheet to be sent home! I am looking forward to taking each student out on their own trout fishing adventure and learning everything there is to know about trout fishing. Thanks Len for all of the insight and getting all of the students excited about a sport that needs more young anglers!