Emily Neal, who participated in an externship at the Decorah Fish Hatchery, stands among the trout stocked in the facility's raceway. (Photo submitted)
Visitors to the Decorah Fish Hatchery may soon be looking at their phones more often but, rather than being a digital distraction, the phones may be a sign the hatchery’s plan to increase engagement with the public is working.
The hatchery plans to host a launch event from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, Aug. 17 for the first of what may be many scavenger hunts at the hatchery, which staff will coordinate through the mobile app Goosechase.
Emily Neal of Decorah, who signed on as the hatchery’s extern earlier this year, helped create the upcoming scavenger hunt.
“I have never been someone who gravitates toward the electronics — ever — so my doing this is interesting, but everyone has a phone and people love to take pictures,” Neal said. “You can’t go anywhere and not see people taking pictures of themselves outside doing things — like selfies with the fish. So why not harness the energy that people have both for the fish and their taking selfies to create an experience that many people are enjoying together?”
She described the app as an online platform in which users complete specific challenges or missions as part of a team. Prompts specific to the hatchery might ask participants to stop at the nearby Siewers Spring, which feeds the facility’s fish raceways, and answer a question about the volume of water by sharing a photo or video. Others may simply ask a teammate to post a photo of their best fish-face, or to tag their location with the app’s GPS.
“Some are educational, some are just fun and whimsical, and the whole idea is to get people out here at the hatchery, learning about what we do but also just exploring the outdoors and having fun with the partners they’re with,” Neal said.
Results will be posted to an online leaderboard — Neal said teams may earn bonus points for creative responses — and the upcoming launch event will conclude with prize drawings.
Neal, who teaches chemistry and physical science at Postville High School, began her time with the hatchery in March as part of an externship — a term for community-level partnerships aimed at allowing educators to experience real-world careers and applications related to their specific fields, which can then inspire project-based learning in the classroom. Neal initially hoped to focus on water quality work during her time at the hatchery and, while she was able to participate in trout stocking and even turtle trapping, she also noticed the hatchery was in need of greater public engagement.
A friend of Neal’s had previously helped Decorah’s Vesterheim Museum use Goosechase to offer online educational programming in 2020, and Neal saw the app’s potential not only for her own classroom but for the hatchery itself.
The Decorah Hatchery was constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the mid-1930s, and it continues to draw visitors constantly throughout the year, Neal said.
Brian Malaise, fisheries hatchery biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, said staff don’t keep specific numbers on how many visitors stop at the hatchery, but the facility generates approximately $14,000-$16,000 annually from 25-cent fish food sales. He said the hatchery has become a local destination in its own right as well as a generational tradition for many families. In addition, the hatchery hosts hundreds of school tours, upwards of a dozen weddings and a handful of funerals each year.
“The Goosechase app has the chance to reach an almost immense number of people that are coming to the fish hatchery and to the Decorah area,” Malaise said.
Malaise went on to say many people — both inside and outside the Decorah area — don’t necessarily understand the ecological interconnectedness of the greater Driftless Area. He said engaging with the public can help shine a light on the hatchery’s broader work and demonstrate where the community’s water supply comes from and by extension the importance of promoting local water quality — he noted the spring from which the local hatchery draws water for its fish is one of the main tributaries of the Upper Iowa River.
Malaise feels the Goosechase app and the challenges Neal is creating for visitors may be an effective method for reaching curious minds by mingling recreation with education.
“Sometimes — as Emily can tell you as a teacher — if you can make it fun, it sinks in more than if it sounds like they’re being lectured to,” Malaise said.
Neal noted the hatchery currently has a number of informational signs and educational boards, but she said it’s unclear how often visitors actually read them. She said many visitors come with questions about the hatchery and its stock of trout, and staff don’t often have the time to stop and answer every inquiry.
“But they want to,” Neal said. “They want this education about fish and our trout streams in general. So this is another way in which this can provide that educational platform. Within the scavenger hunt, you can insert these sorts of common questions people ask about fish.”
Neal agreed to extend her initial externship at the hatchery by a matter of weeks in preparation for this month’s upcoming launch, which she described as a low-maintenance test run, but she feels the idea has plenty of potential for growth. The Goosechase missions could be tailored for specific visiting groups — anything from senior center to daycares — and new challenges could potentially be created on a monthly basis to encourage past participants to revisit the hatchery throughout the year.
“Any time you can connect young people to the natural world — if that’s a fish or a tree, any experience that they have — you plant the seed for someone willing and wanting to protect it or to recognize the inherent value our natural world has,” Neal said. “Any time you can engage a kid and plant that seed, you’re creating the stewards for tomorrow.”
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