MISQUAH — Mrs. Halvorsen’s third-grade class at Oakview Elementary released forty-one rainbow trout fingerlings into Big Pelican on Thursday morning, completing a school-year project that began in September with a tank of eggs and ended, for several students, in tears.

The class raised the trout from eggs supplied by the Department of Natural Resources through its Trout in the Classroom program, monitoring water temperature, feeding the fish, and charting their growth on a wall by the coat hooks. Of an original forty-six eggs, forty-one survived to release — a rate the DNR called “very good for a classroom.”

The release, at the public landing, was a solemn affair. Despite repeated guidance from Mrs. Halvorsen, a number of students had named their fish over the year, which complicated the goodbye. A moment of silence was observed for one trout, called Mr. Bubbles, who did not survive to release day and whose portrait, drawn by the class, now hangs in the Oakview front hallway.

“We learned about the water cycle,” reported student Brynn Solberg, who attended despite having finished third grade two years ago and being present, she explained, “for support.” “And we learned you’re not supposed to name them. We named them anyway. That was the mistake.”

Mrs. Halvorsen said the fingerlings have “a hard road” ahead but that several students had asked to come back and check on them — a plan she gently discouraged, the fish being now “out there, living their lives, as we discussed.” The DNR notes the released trout are unlikely to reach legal catch size for two to three years.