Salmon obstacle course

For this obstacle course students will act out the salmon life cycle from fry to spawners. They have to survive in the wild!

Salmon start their lives as eggs, hidden in gravel at the bottom of fast flowing water. They grow up in this spawning ground

area as alevin (eating their egg sac) and fry (eating insects.) Seasonally, they are triggered to move beyond their spawning

ground. At the stage of smolts, their bodies undergo a large physiological transformation, allowing them to move through their

creek, through the river systems, and finally reaching the estuaries that lead them to the ocean. They live in the ocean for the

majority of their lives where they develop into adult salmon. Finally, when the time is right, their bodies undergo another large

physiological transformation allowing them to travel from the saltwater ocean to the freshwater creek where they were born.

They will lay their eggs and milt back in the exact same spot where they grew up for the beginning of their life.

Their migration follows a

great distance, amazing

abilities to find their home,

and incredible amounts of

threats along the way.

Goal: To create and complete

an obstacle course that

represents all the struggles

that real salmon have to

navigate as they go from rivers

to the ocean and back.

Materials: Whatever items you can

find around your house and outside.

If being outside is not an option

then just use your household items,

couch, chair, bed to represent items

such as salmon locks or waterfalls,

dams, and predators.

Set up: This obstacle course should not be very

easy to migrate through. As in the real world the

salmon have to overcome many obstacles. Try and

find ways that you have to jump, crawl under,

squeeze through, get around, climb and avoid. Use

your whole yard or house. Feel free to use both

your house and the outdoors as a whole course.

For example. You can start off in your bedroom as

your hatching area and end up outside down the

block or to a park as the ocean and then return all

the way back to your “spawning ground”

(bedroom) as your whole obstacle course. Think of

it as a giant salmon parkour.

Start here?Potential predator?

Shadows can be predators?

Getting up stream?

Swimming around rocks?

Requirements: You should have a

minimum of 6 predators and 10

obstacles one of which needs to be

uphill or upstairs.

Remember to have fun, be safe

and have a parent approve of

the obstacle course before you

try it.

If you make an obstacle

course please send pictures

or videos of your course and

getting through it. Thanks!