Salmon are at the heart of the cultures of the Columbia River nations. The Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Yakama formed the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission in 1977 to protect the salmon and their treaty fishing rights, and Coast Salish and other Pacific Northwest nations fish for salmon too. Salmon hatch in river gravel, swim to the ocean, grow there for a few years and swim back up their home river to lay eggs. Families dry salmon in the wind on wooden racks, and at dams people count the fish that swim up the fish ladders. The counts and families on these pages are made up for the problems.
Five pages of 2nd and 3rd grade math from the salmon run. Page 1 skip counts salmon in groups of 2, 5 and 10 at a counting window. Page 2 writes six drying racks as rows of salmon and multiplication. Page 3 reads a Chinook salmon's life on a timeline, finds four salmon's ages from the years they hatched and came back, and solves two stories. Page 4 draws a bar graph from a fish ladder count and answers four questions. Page 5 has six multiplication and division stories. The first problem on each page is a worked example.
Look at a map of the Columbia River and its dams before starting, and talk about why salmon need fish ladders to get past them. On page 3, count the years on the timeline together before filling in the table.
If you buy salmon, look for where it was caught, and talk about how far a salmon swims from the ocean back to its home river.
This pack supports the following Common Core State Standards for Mathematics:
© Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.
Math from the salmon run, at the heart of the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs, Yakama and other Pacific Northwest nations, who fish for salmon today. Students skip count fish at a counting window, multiply rows of salmon on drying racks, find ages on a life cycle timeline, graph a fish ladder count and solve multiplication and division stories.
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