Fun_People Archive
27 Jan
Salmon Spawning Made Simple

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 97 14:19:01 -0800
To: Fun_People
Subject: Salmon Spawning Made Simple

Forwarded-by: Eric Steese <ecscc@olywa.net>
From: C. Cameli
From: Grace Landel <glandel@u.washington.edu>
From: "P. Hummel" <jhummel@u.washington.edu>
From: The Right To Know Project - Ketchikan <rtkp@ptialaska.net>

Salmon Spawning Made Simple

Here's the way it was with the second grade class at East Elementary School
in Kodiak.

    They were studying the life cycle of the salmon and they came to
spawning.  So in art class each kid made a salmon mask.  (What a salmon mask
should look like, God only knows.)  They adjourned to the gym where each
kid held his/her mask on with one hand.  The girls were given a sponge Nerf
ball and the boys a can of shaving cream.  The male salmon chases the female
salmon and sprays the egg.  Thus, nature's cycle remains unbroken.
    Some ofthe girls wouldn't run but meekly held out their egg.  One
aggressive girl chased her partner around the gym thrusting her egg at him.
This so flustered the boy that he couldn't get his spray can to function.
She called him a sissy and he burst into tears.  One little boy kept
spraying himself even after the teacher told him it was nasty.  Two boys
were content spraying each other and wouldn't pay attention to their female
partners.
    When the teacher turned her back many of the kids quickly spawned with
other than their assigned partners.
    Afterwards, the children were graded on their spawning techniques.
Parents of those given low grades protested, saying spawning is too
subjective to be graded.

Bob Stokes

© 1997 Peter Langston