Los Alamos Lab helps students release trout they raised from eggs

Barranca Mesa Elementary second-graders released 38 rainbow trout into the Rio Chama just north of Abiquiu on June 25 after raising the fish from eggs in a classroom aquarium for four months. The outing tied a classroom science project to one of Northern New Mexico’s most visible watersheds, where water quality and habitat directly shape trout survival.

The students started with 40 eggs supplied through New Mexico Trout Unlimited, and 38 hatched and survived. Their work ended far from the school cafeteria and aquarium tank, on a stretch of river where fish need clean, cold water to endure. For local classrooms, that hands-on connection turns a lesson about life cycles into a lesson about the Rio Chama, the Rio Grande system and the conservation choices that affect both.

Aaron Dailey, the Los Alamos National Laboratory environmental manager for water quality, helped with the release. Dailey leads the Lab’s Water Quality team, which monitors permitted wastewater discharges to help ensure they do not carry contaminants harmful to people or the environment. He has volunteered with the local Trout Unlimited chapter since the 1990s and moved to Los Alamos from Farmington about seven years ago.

That mix of lab work and volunteer time made Dailey a natural fit for a program that links trout, watershed science and classroom biology. Trout in the Classroom has operated for more than 30 years and says it reaches more than 100,000 students annually nationwide. In New Mexico, the Truchas Chapter of Trout Unlimited said its 2025-2026 season included a record 16 participating schools, up from 13 the year before.

The chapter works with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish to place trout eggs in classrooms and, when students are finished raising them, to release rainbow trout in approved waters such as the Pecos River or Monastery Lake. The Rio Chama release extended that same pipeline from egg to river, showing students how local water chemistry and stream habitat affect the fish they had raised by hand.

The project also fit into a broader pattern of Lab volunteer work across Northern New Mexico. In 2025, 370 LANL employees gave 4,446 service hours to 119 STEM and non-STEM activities that reached an estimated 2,440 students, teachers and community members across seven counties.