1. Begin incubating the chicks two weeks in advance. You might want
to keep this a secret until egg week. That way, the final week of
incubation (it takes 21 days) will be all about life cycles and eggs,
and the wait will not be too long for this age-level. Keep notes of
any important events that might effect the outcome of the experiment,
such as power outages or temperature variations.
2. When the eggs are about two weeks along, present the students with
the experiment underway. Students can mark the eggs with an "X"
in pencil to help illustrate how the eggs are turned each day (turning
is a natural consequence of the hens constant reordering of the eggs
to insure that each egg gets adequate warmth. )
3. Show pictures of baby chicks (EggNchick.pdf)
4. Have ten students crouch down, pretending to get into make-believe
eggs as if they will hatch. Tell the students the average hatch rate
for your chickens (ask the hatchery). In the case of Dominique chickens
from Murray McMurray, the hatch rate is 7 out of 10. In this case,
touch seven of the little chicks and tell all the chicks that if
they have been touched on the head, they will hatch. The children
watch and wait as you count to 21 (representing the days to hatch).
Three of them will not hatch. This is an opportunity to get the students
used to the idea that not all eggs hatch. Perhaps they did not get
fertilized. Perhaps the chick wasn't growing properly and simply
failed to develop. There are any number of natural causes. (Try to
choose students who will be able to remember that they are not to
hatch, and able to handle that fact emotionally. )
5. After sharing your incubation notes from the previous weeks, have
students make an educated guess about how many eggs will successfully
hatch.
6. Inquiry: How many hatched? How were our results relative to the
averages for the hatchery?
1. Read and Discuss: Millicent Selsam, Egg to Chick, a Reading
Rainbow book illustrated by Barbara Wolff.
2. Read: Inside an Egg by Kiyoshi Shimizu
RESOURCES
