The entire 5th grade class came to the room where we set up. I can't take any credit, I didn't do much but hold the rooster. This morning, we took Pierre to class because Alex (the 5th grader) wanted him. Pierre was VERY talkative in class this morning! He crowed at least 20 times for the kids!
The children were VERY enthusiastic about hatching baby chicks in their class and they had a lot of questions, which my brother answered for more than an hour. Jeee, you should have seen the faces of those 50+ kids light up at the idea of hatching chicks! They're all so excited....
It seems to me that this type of involvement in the public school system is really valuable with respect to getting the kids to "catch on fire".
It was such a positive experience... the kids were VERY enthusiastic...
Anyone can do this... if you have an incubator and if you have fertile eggs ... you too can call a teacher about setting up an incubation project in class. I promise you! the kids will remember it the rest of their lives....
By Susie (Susied) on Wednesday, January 23, 2002 - 04:03 pm:
That sounds like so much fun!! I would love to do something like that!
Thank you for your lovely post, Susie! I was surprised, I guess, because I never really gave much thought to how much the public school teachers want to have participation from the community. They really do crave to have community participation and they are very grateful to have interested people contribute.
Infomaniac, I am doing the same thing for 5th graders in an afterschool program. This is for "at risk city kids" who need a little help catching up to speed. This is the fun part. We have yet to start but the kids ask the teacher every day, " when do we get to hatch the chicks?" I think it will be great fun.
I too think projects like that are great. The schools here do that ,then kids take the chicks home. The older students run simple tests on the birds such as addition of male hormones, mazes etc. Some of theses kids then retain an interest and go on to poultry 4H. I remember for my science project in 7th or 8th grade I incubated eggs and every day had to remove the embryo from shell and put it in a jar of preservative. It went good till about the 18 or 19th day.
Thank you, everyone, who participated in this thread. The kids here are soooooo excited! They are turning the eggs by hand and dropped one, as I mentioned above. But, that was a learning experience!
Info, you are so right about this. I have never heard about such projects here in Belgian elementary schools. Some city kids would not even drink milk from a cow, just milk from the brick. Sure these kids will remember you and your brother, and tell their kids about you!!
Anny, the "brick" you mentioned... this is a rectangular container of milk... it is processed so that it doesn't even need refrigeration... am I right? I was in Hungary in the early 1980s. I bought milk in Budapest(the milk was from Russia, I believe) that was so packaged. It was not refrigerated. It was in a "box" that looked like a brick. The Hungarians boasted that it could last (months, years... I have forgotten now)....
Info, that's right, the brick is a rectangular three-layered container for milk, fruit juices, even (french) wine, etc. The milk can indeed last for several months without refrigeration, it is UHT-processed (Ultra High Temperature). The used bricks are collected, shredded and pressed into hardboard panels. Don't you have these bricks in the US?
Thank you so much for your post, Anny,.... no... we don't have the bricks here, but I remember them from when I was behind the Iron Curtain (jeee... what an antiquated term!!!!)
Info, you burn just one piece of plastic here and within no time you have the police at your door!
LOL! No! I was on an academic exchange program. I was in the Math Dept. at the Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest. I did help a friend defect, though. I smuggled out of Hungary their family photos and birth records....
You are right, and although the curtain is supposed to be down, even now there still is no real freedom in the East. Everything is controlled either by the State or by the Mafia and IMHO the States are also controlled by the Mafia.
And you're right about how they'll remember it for the rest of their lives. I was in 4th grade when our teacher brought in two abandoned opossum babies and to this day I remember details about it. I was fascinated! We bottle fed them.
Keep us posted! I'm having fun just hearing about it!
Susie
By Infomaniac on Wednesday, January 23, 2002 - 04:40 pm:
If you would like to do something like that ... you can, and your efforts will be gratefully received and you will be remembered by all the children in the class long after you and I are gone from this earth.
My brother commented after class (5th grade class this morning... LOL! he also teaches college chemistry here) that he will probably continue to do this as long as we have chickens, despite the fact that his kids will be out of elementary school... He said that he felt that the 4th or 5th grade level is the right time to let them hatch a batch of chicks. Older kids are thinking about other things (sex, I guess! LOL!) and younger kids don't fully appreciate what is going on.
The fourth grade dropped one of the eggs yesterday. Thankfully, it landed outside the incubator. The accident was actually a nice thing, in my opinion, because the kids got a chance to see the baby embryo in the broken egg. It had incubated for 7 days.
It was great fun for me. I don't get out much.
By Paul Gonzalez (Pgncluck) on Wednesday, January 23, 2002 - 05:00 pm:
By Robbpa on Wednesday, January 23, 2002 - 05:08 pm:
By INfomaniac on Friday, January 25, 2002 - 05:06 pm:
Robbpa, the MSU website has drawings and weights of the embryos every day for the 21 day incubation. We brought printouts of this to the classes.
Anyway... it was really fun. I remember when I was in elementary school. We didn't do anything like this. We did nothing. Nothing except class stuff. We had no in-class experiments like this.
In my arrogant opinion (I'm not really arrogant, I'm poking fun at false modesty), such projects are important contributions to children's lives. They will remember my brother and this "chick hatching experience" for the rest of their lives.... long after we are all dead and gone!
By anny on Friday, January 25, 2002 - 05:42 pm:
By Infomaniac on Friday, January 25, 2002 - 08:30 pm:
I flew from Zurich to Budapest on Aeroflot.... it was a nightmare. I almost didn't survive.... Even the "flight attendants" almost blew chunks.... it was awful.
By anny on Saturday, January 26, 2002 - 04:52 pm:
By Infomaniac on Saturday, January 26, 2002 - 06:42 pm:
Most people buy milk in gallon jugs that are made of poly-ethylene.... these jugs are "recycyled" usually by shredding for fill in winter coats / jackets.....
We burn them in the fireplace because the plastic burns hot and they are good for starting the fire!
By anny on Sunday, January 27, 2002 - 03:47 pm:
Were you behind the "Curtain" as a tourist or as a spy? 
By Infomaniac on Tuesday, January 29, 2002 - 05:00 pm:
It was pretty scary. Everyone had to whisper and be concerned about what they said and to whom and who was evesdropping... I was surprised how efficiently a society can be closed off from the rest of the world. The Soviets jammed Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America transmissions on a regular basis. All internal media was controlled by the State.
By anny on Wednesday, January 30, 2002 - 03:45 pm:
But, let's get back to chickens. How is the school project evolving? Have you let the kids candle the eggs?