Back in 2015, childrens’ entertainers Bobs and Lolo recorded their song, Run Salmon Run, and that summer Bowen-based Turtle Box Productions created their music video.
“As we were working on it, we decided hey, why not make an app,” says Turtle Box’s Kat Hayduk, who now lives in Hamilton, Ontario. “We started a fundraiser through Indi-Go-Go and raised about $1,000 towards the app. One of our biggest donors was the Bowen Island Fish and Wildlife Club.
Working closely with the Department of Fisheries and Ocean’s “Salmonoids in the Classroom” program, the team came up with a design for an app with three levels: a storybook about the salmon lifecycle including an interactive element, a “learning mode” with prompts based on DFO’s classroom program, and a third level that included the music video and a game that tests the users salmon-lifecycle knowledge.
The app launched on Itunes a few weeks ago, and Liz Watson, one of the grade one and two teacher at BICS, downloaded it onto the school’s ipads right away.
“Teaching about salmon here on Bowen is really easy and accessible,” says Watson.
“We see them come up the fish ladder in the fall, we raise them in the classroom, and I love that the story of their lifecycle is full of mystery. The kids love it too, and were already excited about all the app’s components before it came out.”
Watson says her students first got to use the app last week and loved it.
“They wanted to play the game over and over,” she says. “They also loved the part of the video that shows Bobs and Lolo releasing salmon into the stream, because we do that too. They were really quite delighted.”
The Run-Salmon-Run app is available on Itunes for $2.79.
