Brine shrimp matter to us.
We care about them.
We like how fast they swim.
They may be small, but we need them so much.

Brine shrimp matter.
They are small but do a lot for us.
The impact they have is so big.
Praise the way they feed so many amazing birds.

Brine shrimp can only live in salt water,
only in the south side of the lake,
only in certain salinity.
Their arms look like spaghetti.

Praise their little black eyes sticking out of their heads.
Praise them for providing hundreds of jobs from farming cysts.
They swim like they are crawling through a vast nothingness.
Like whales in the ocean but brine shrimp in Great Salt Lake.

We love their bright colors when we see them.
We like the little wing things that they swim with.
Praise the way their wings propel them through water.
It’s cool and unique how they swim.

Brine shrimp matter.
They’re the ones who bring the life.
Something that surprised us is how they help
prevent toxic dust from releasing.

Brine shrimp matter
because they are a keystone species.
Brine shrimp matter
because we use the cysts to feed our fish.

Brine shrimp are beautiful creatures,
they help our ecosystem and our economy.
They matter because 1. They are very cute
2. Without them the lake would be more unhealthy than it is.

Even if we stopped diverting water, brine shrimp
would still need to be there for the lake
to sustain so much life like it does.
Brine shrimp matter.

Praise pink lines with wings swimming freely.
Praise black pure eyes staring into mine.
If we did not have them,
we would not be here today.

Brine shrimp have multiple generations in one body of water.
Praise the way they have so many eggs.
Great Salt Lake would not be great
if there were no brine shrimp.

Praise the way their eyes pop out of their tiny bodies.
Praise the way you can see them so easily with their eyes.
Brine shrimp matter to us because they live
in the great Salt Lake City School District.

Praise brine shrimp for giving us learning opportunities.
They are the foundation of the whole lake.
The mass of brine shrimp in Great Salt Lake
adds up to the mass of 1.8 million people.

Brine shrimp matter to us because if they weren’t in the lake
we wouldn’t get to learn as much as we have
and we wouldn’t have the opportunity
to go to the capitol and see how a bill gets passed.

Brine shrimp matter because of everything
that has happened in 2021 to 2022…
studying Great Salt Lake has brought us
happiness in this hard time.

The praise poets of Mr. Josh Craner’s 6th grade class at Emerson Elementary successfully petitioned the legislature to declare Brine Shrimp the official Utah State Crustacean.