Did You Know?
About 70 to 80 percent of the salmon caught in the Pacific Northwest, and nearly a quarter of those caught in Alaska, started their lives in a hatchery.
How to Get Started
Aquaculture is a career you can pursue anywhere you can watch living things in water, from a creek or tide pool to a classroom fish tank. It starts with noticing what animals need to stay healthy, and paying close attention to the water they live in.
Explore the Basics
With a grown-up, spend some time watching fish, either at a public aquarium, a pet store, a pond, or a friend’s fish tank. Notice how they move, where in the water they like to stay, and what they do when food appears. Ask the person who takes care of them how they keep the water clean and how they can tell when a fish is sick.
Try It Out
Ask a grown-up to help you build a simple water filter from a cut-off plastic bottle layered with cotton balls, sand, and gravel. Pour muddy water through it and see how much clearer it comes out, then try changing the order or thickness of the layers and compare. Fish farms use filters that work on the same idea, just much bigger.
Join the Community
Ask a parent or caregiver to look up whether your state has a public fish hatchery nearby. Many are free to visit and let you see thousands of young fish up close, and some have viewing windows or feeding areas. If there isn’t one close by, a public aquarium, nature center, or library program about rivers and oceans is a good substitute.