So what were about 93 seventh-graders and a dozen or so adults doing wandering around some very muddy banks along a section of North Creek on a wet and, for early spring, very cold day?

“Teaching has to be real,” said retired Northshore instructor Mike Reid, one of the adult volunteers who helped oversee the students’ study of the condition of North Creek.

Just as, if not more, importantly, the students also released some 240 Coho salmon into North Creek where the waterway runs through the Canyon Park industrial area.

No doubt Skyview Junior High science teacher Tom Nowak would agree with Reid’s comment. With the help of grant money from Snohomish County Public Works, Nowak’s classes grew the salmon released April 1 from what he called “eggs with eyes.”

By the time they were let go into the creek, they were about the size of large minnows and Nowak even commented some of his students had grown somewhat attached to the young fish and didn’t want to let them go.

The Coho traveled to North Creek in buckets with air pumps attached. Though the calendar said spring had arrived, there actually had been some snow falling earlier that day and Nowak expressed concern the creek water might be too cold to take in any young new inhabitants. Students were told to slowly equalize the water temperature in the buckets with that of the creek by adding creek water to the buckets every few minutes.

As that process went forward, students began to run various tests on the waterway, ranging from discovering its temperature to its turbidity to its pH level.

After taking three readings with a thermometer, Austin Hill, 13, pronounced that temperature as 5.5 Celsius or about 41.9 Fahrenheit. Students in Austin’s group had a little disagreement about whether the temperature was appropriate for their young charges, but all said salmon like colder water.

Besides colder temperatures, salmon also need and thrive better in water with a low turbidity or silt level, high oxygen levels and low phosphate and nitrate levels, according to Suzi Wong Swint, watershed education coordinator for Snohomish County Public Works.

As he traveled from group to group along the creek bank, Nowak talked a lot about how fertilizer run off adds greatly to the chemical levels in natural waterways. How is North Creek doing in that regard? Madison Otto, 12, and Brittany Phan, 13, said they found significant levels of nitrates in the water, but also noted other groups found no evidence of nitrates at all.

Reid talked about bringing groups of students to North Creek for similar field trips back when he was a teacher. He said 25 years ago, the average value of the salmon making their way through North Creek was about $720,000 annually. He said due mostly to development surrounding the creek, that figure has dropped precipitously. Wong said the creek never will be returned to what it once was, but it’s not too far gone to make a partial comeback.

About half way through their hour-plus trip to the creek, students released the young Coho into the waterway. Although there will be no way to know for sure, Nowak said the obvious hope is that the fish will return to the creek to spawn in about five years. Students seemed to all agree on the importance of maintaining waterways such as North Creek as salmon habitats.

“This is where they belong, this where they should be,” said Sydney Holman, 13.