It’s the day New York anglers head out to local waterways — to try and catch the big one. In one Finger Lakes classroom, students are preparing to stock a lake with brown trout, which they’ve grown themselves. And there’s an important lesson behind what they’re doing.

Important work is being done around the fish tank in Jonathan Pragle’s classroom at Marcus Whitman High School.

“It's a really cool learning experience,” said senior Maddie Mekeel. “Because living in this area we see fish everywhere, but you never really see them that small, when they're all big fish.”

The class is raising brown trout. From eggs, to alevins that you need a microscope to see, to where they are now.

“It’s cool to see the different stages,” said Raegan Weissinger, a sophomore. “We have pictures from now and from the beginning.”

The college-level environmental science class includes a partnership with Trout Unlimited, which helped the school purchase and obtain supplies. The class teaches much more than just raising fish.

“A lot of our kids fish, and they hunt, and in my mind those are your best environmentalist, the ones that care the most,” said Pragle. “And so if they can understand the parameters that trout require, they're more likely to care in the future about preserving that environment.”

“It's been really cool because we're the ones taking care of these fish,” said Owen Hoover, senior. “We're the ones feeding them, we’re the ones testing the water to make sure it's healthy in there.”

The brown trout will grow to over two feet in length once they’re released, in Canandaigua Lake in early spring.

“It'll be sad,” said sophomore Hailee King. “But it was a cool experience to be able to see them grow and watch them evolve.”

An evolution — bringing environmentalism into the classroom.

“Getting students to care about our local environment, there’s so much biodiversity for us to protect around here,” said Pragle. “And for me it’s right outside our door.”