Contact:
Saree Timmons
Regional Information Biologist
Phone: (907) 267-2518

Fritz Kraus, of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Sport Fish, was awarded the 2006 Jerry S. Dixon Award for Excellence in Environmental Education by the Alaska Conservation Foundation.  Only one Dixon award is given statewide each year. The award “acknowledges and rewards innovative educators who integrate stewardship of Alaska’s vast and precious natural resources into their instructive efforts,” according to the foundation’s web site. Teachers of all disciplines may be nominated. Kraus was vested with the award at a September 29 awards dinner, with over 100 in attendance.

Kraus, known as “Fish Man,” was nominated by community leaders, including Carol Comeau, Superintendent of the Anchorage School District.

Since 1989, Kraus has led thousands of Alaska’s students into streams and lakes to get wet, touch and catch fish, and generally have a great time, all while learning about Alaska’s wild salmon and our stream ecology. Kraus’ environmental education programs began in Anchorage, and over the years have been expanded to students in the communities of Palmer, Glennallen, Seward, Cordova, Valdez, Soldotna, Kodiak, Fairbanks, and Bristol Bay.

Kraus also coordinated permissions with the Canadian Department of Oceans and Fisheries to introduce the educational curriculum called “Salmonids in the Classroom” to school districts statewide. He revised the curriculum to better reflect Alaska’s management concerns with wild salmon, and to focus on teaching the salmon life cycle rather than production.

This curriculum is now accepted in over 70 elementary schools, and includes hands-on silver (coho) salmon egg takes in September and October which allow students to bring salmon into their classrooms, in refrigerated aquaria supplied by Kraus’ program. Other hands-on activities in the curriculum are classroom salmon dissections, in which students learn internal and external anatomy by a hands-on dissection of pink salmon, classroom fly tying in which students make real, fishable flies, and an ice fishing field trip to a local lake, where students learn about lake habitat.

Kraus also began the “Salmon Celebration” portion of the Salmon in the Classroom program, during which thousands of students join in the release of hatchery-raised fish, as well as participate in salmon-related activity booths.

In 2003, Kraus brought another new environmental education program to Alaskans — the Mobile Aquatic Classroom, a 40-foot custom-built trailer fully equipped with microscopes, dissection scopes, computers, a surround-sound stereo system and DVD and VHS equipment.  The outside of the rig was painted by artists Ray Troll, Carla Potter, Roberto Salas, and Guillermo Jauregui, and features “the world’s biggest humpy” along with other salmon and fish species found in Alaska’s waters. In 2003, over 4,000 kids visited the Mobile Classroom and learned how to tie flies, identify fish, and examine aquatic insects.  Kraus was able to partner the $300,000 price tag by approaching the Federal Wildlife Conservation and Restoration Program, and State Wildlife Grants; the Kenai River Sportfishing Association, Conoco Phillips, and the Fred Meyer Foundation.