These supplementary teaching resources align to the open textbook, Fish, Fishing, and Conservation which is a 389-page, peer-reviewed publicly-available, openly-licensed textbook intended for undergraduate students who are exploring majors in Fish & Wildlife. It is also relevant to a general audience or for use in courses which explore social and ethical aspects of fish, fishing and conservation.

The open textbook, Fish, Fishing, and Conservation, is freely available at https://doi.org/10.21061/fishandconservation

Supplementary teaching resources include a sample course syllabus, schedule, and a variety of assignments.

Individuals who wish to share their materials relevant to teaching in this subject area are encouraged to join and share their openly-licensed resources via the Fish, Fishing, and Conservation Instructor Group in OERCommons

Are you reviewing or adopting Fish, Fishing, and Conservation for a course? Please help us understand your use by completing this form https://bit.ly/fishandconservation_interest

Students are introduced to the basic biology behind Pacific salmon migration and the many engineered Columbia River dam structures that aid in their passage through the river's hydroelectric dams. Students apply what they learn about the salmon life cycle as they think of devices and modifications that might be implemented at dams to aid in the natural cycle of fish migration, and as they make (hypothetical) Splash Engineering presentations about their proposed fish mitigation solutions for Birdseye River's dam in Thirsty County.

A variety of symbiotic relationships exist between sharks and other marine species in this segment from Nature.

Poster for presentation of "Junior Prom" at the Oceanside High School, featuring the Rhythm Kings Orchestra, showing three fish with musical notation. Date stamped on verso: Jul 18 1939. Co-sponsored by Oceanside High School.

Poster promoting the aquarium in Fairmount Park as a place to visit, showing fish. Date stamped on verso: Aug 4 1937. Promotional goal: U.S. K5. 1937.

Commercial trawling has a devastating effect on biodiversity in areas where it has been used. Large commercial trawlers have been historically decimating both marine environments and significantly decreasing stock levels to a level at which they are unable to recuperate.  The impact on communities sitting on the seafloor, known as benthic communities is devastating, the primary culprit being drag trawlers with beams of up to 12 meters, and several beams often deployed at the same time. This lesson looks at the effect of commercial trawling on both fish stocks and benthic community biodiversity.  Students will understand relative sizes and impacts of large-scale fishing operations, and devise a plan to reduce the impacts of trawling. Students perform percentage calculations and analyze graphs.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Archaea are single-celled organisms typically associated with extreme living environments. But many types make their home in the human body, including the gut. Unfortunately, what archaea are common and how they contribute to human health remain largely unknown. To gain a better idea, scientists used 16S rRNA gene deep sequencing to analyze fecal samples gathered from 897 East Asian people living in South Korea. Archaea made up nearly 10% of all microbes detected and displayed a surprisingly diverse membership. Most members were methane-producing archaea (green). But salt-loving “haloarchaea” (red) dominated several samples. Based on these variations in microbial community structure, samples could be classified into one of four types – or “enterotypes”. Future studies could help scientists refine these archaea enterotypes and understand their relationship to human health..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The Chinese tongue sole (Cynoglossus semilaevis) is a popular and economically important farmed flatfish. But this species is susceptible to outbreaks of vibriosis, a bacterial infection that can cause significant losses. The intestinal microbiome in many animals can impact disease resistance, but little is known about its role in fish diseases. So, researchers used families of C. semilaevis selectively bred to be either vibriosis-resistant or susceptible. The gene expression of the fish, as well as the microbial community structure and functional capabilities, were different between the two families. There was also evidence that the intestinal microbiome was influencing the expression of immune-related genes in the fish. Specifically, the vibriosis-resistant fish had gene expression changes that would reduce inflammation and balance the immune response..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Though we often think of evolution as occurring at a snail's pace, one fish species is highlighting just how quickly evolution occurs in the right circumstances. Between 1947 and 1976, General Electric released more than a million pounds of PCBs into the Hudson River. PCBs can kill fish and seabirds and have been linked to cancer and other serious health problems in humans. PCBs were banned in 1979, but the toxins have remained at high levels in the Hudson because they settle into the sediments on the bottom of the river and don't break down. Now, scientists have discovered that, over the past 60 years, one bottom-feeding fish species, the Atlantic tomcod, has evolved resistance to PCBs.