Students at Dzantik'i Heeni Middle School are digging deep into learning about salmon, from guts to growth.

Science teachers and cultural specialists formed a large unit on salmon — from traditional science to cultural importance. About 90 students on Tuesday and Wednesday listened to Tlingit elder John Martin Sr., share stories and history of the importance of salmon and respecting all living things.

Martin first went through the different names of the salmon species and body parts in Tlingit with the students.

"Your tongue is not going to get stuck when you pronounce Tlingit words," Martin said. "We respect all living things and all living things have spirits. To me, when we say these species of salmon, don’t be afraid that you’re going to offend the salmon species."

For example, the cheek is called a w’ashi. The scales are called a kageigí.

Martin told the story of the salmon boy. It told of respecting food, respecting the spirit and learning about salmon and the oceans.

Before students saw the coho, Victoria Johnson, DZ cultural specialist, asked the students to be respectful of the fish, as in Martin's story.

"I know salmon is a little bit slimy and it has an odor," she said. "But that doesn’t mean we have to be rude and say those things. In Tlingit culture we believe that all things have a spirit.  ... We never believed we were out there hunting them down, tracking them down. We believed they gave themselves to us … so that we could have nourishment."

John Smith III, Thunder Mountain High School cultural specialist, placed a salmon on a plastic covered table, under the lights of a projector so students could see what he was doing. He demonstrated how to cut off the head, how to remove the internal organs, and two methods on how to filet the fish so it can be cold smoked.

"We have to make sure that we use everything," Smith said.

On Wednesday 10 salmon were placed on plastic-coated tables in the cafeteria with groups of students and teachers. The teachers cut open the fish as Smith had demonstrated and students pulled out different pieces.

The salmon filleted on both Tuesday and Wednesday will be a part of a broader lesson.

"After students have learned about the dissection of the salmon, we’re teaching them about filleting and traditional ways of preserving our food," Johnson said. "We’re going to be smoking our salmon at another time."

Tina Pasteris, one of the seventh- and eighth-grade science teachers, said students will spend a night in the school and take turns flipping the salmon in the smoke house.

Johnson said they will be making a traditional meal out of the salmon and Tlingit potatoes that Jeannie Drapeaux and Ciara Rear's classes harvested from the Jensen-Olson Arboretum.

"So we are making a traditional meal from the salmon that we are dissecting called Niete," Johnson said. "That’s half smoked and half dried salmon. This will be used for our celebration in November, which we’re going to call a Harvest Fest. We’re going to take our salmon and Tlingit potatoes we have growing outside of our building. We will be using that as our main course meal. We will have these two traditional meals as a result of their hard work, this will be to share with our community."

Johnson believes the lessons are important to connect the community with students learning, like the interactions with DIPAC. They also worked with the 4-H program for the potatoes and the history behind them.

"We were just trying to find ways to make place-based learning in our school," Johnson said. "What better way to do it with salmon and the end of the season. The science teachers worked together. Students will be learning about anatomy, habitat and tracking. They’re going to be dissecting the heads, talking about equilibriums and so forth. They also will talk about jobs in the field of science."

Goldbelt Heritage Institute has sponsored the elders, who are using Sealaska's curriculum.

Students also took trips out to DIPAC to learn about the migration cycle.

Cultural elders like Martin were brought in to teach about older traditions.

"To help students understand that the people that lived here long before pre-contact, that this was one of their staple foods that they harvested every year and how people are preserving it today versus how we preserved it in the past," Johnson said.

Science and math teachers Mike Olsen, Pasteris, and James White helped with the plan.

Pasteris said each of the science teachers in Aurora House (the school is divided into three "houses") will focus on a different lesson to add to Tuesday and Wednesday's hands-on project.

Pasteris will have a unit on food preservation and the science behind it.

"We’ll be looking at ‘well, why do we put the fish in the brine?,’" she said. "What does that do? Why do we have to dry the fish?"

Olsen's class will focus on habitat and the ecosystem. White's class will learn about migration and tagging — how scientists keep track of the fish.

"I think that they are, once they get the fish in front of them it’s pretty engaging," Pasteris said of how the students were taking it. "Once they’re in there and get their hands on it, they are hooked."

• Contact reporter Sarah Day at 523-2279 or at sarah.day@juneauempire.com.