School Hatching Projects: Poor Lessons For Children
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Every year, kindergarten and elementary school teachers and
their students place thousands of fertilized eggs in classroom
incubators to be hatched within three or four weeks. No one knows
how many eggs are used in chick hatching projects, but in 1994
one egg supplier sold 1,8OO eggs to New York City schools alone.
These birds are not only deprived of a mother; many grow sick and
deformed because their exacting needs are not met during
incubation and after hatching. Chick organs stick to the sides of
the shells because they are not rotated properly. Chicks are born
with their intestines outside their bodies. Eggs can hatch on
weekends when no one is in school to care for the chicks. The
heat may be turned off for the weekend causing the chicks to
become crippled or die in the shell. Some teachers even remove an
egg from the incubator every other day and open it up to look at
the chick in various stages of development, thus adding the
killing of innocent life to the child's experience.
When the project is over, these now unwanted birds may be
left in boxes in the main office for many hours without food,
water, or adequate ventilation waiting for the district science
coordinator to collect them for disposal.
Because a child bonds naturally with infant animals,
students and even some teachers are misled to believe that the
surviving chicks are going to live out their lives happily on a
farm, when in reality, most of them are going to be killed
immediately (working farms do not assimilate school-project birds
into their existing flocks), sold to live poultry markets and
auctions, fed to captive zoo animals, or left to die slowly of
hunger and thirst as a result of ignorance and neglect. As one
egg supply farm explained, "We don't tell the school and kids the
truth because they become emotionally involved. The emotional
involvement of people goes beyond our counselling capacity."
Some children do learn the truth, however. At one special
education school in New York City, the custodian flushed deformed
live chicks down the toilet, while at another special education
school, the teacher twisted the deformed chicks' necks and then
flushed them--significant lessons for children who are themselves
disabled.
Each year, the ASPCA, United Poultry Concerns and other
animal shelters across the country are confronted with unwanted
chicks, many of them ill, from educators who never thought of the
fate of the birds, or could not find homes for them, adding to
the tremendous burden already borne by the shelters. (Virtually
all of the chicks turned in to the shelters are immediately
euthanized because there are no homes and because they arrive
sick.) Fortunately, more and more parents and educators are
urging alternatives to these insensitive projects. As ASPCA
president, Roger Caras, writes, "Each year, the ASPCA receives
numerous calls from public school teachers and science
coordinators asking for alternatives to the chick hatching
project. These caring educators have demonstrated their concern,
as well as the concern of their coworkers and the children's
parents, as to the unusual amount of cruelty to animals that this
project entails and its negative educational value."
Increasing urbanization enormously compounds the problem.
Residentially-zoned areas ban the keeping of domestic fowl, while
even people who can provide a good home for a chicken can
accommodate only so many roosters. Normal flocks have several
female birds to one male, and roosters crow before dawn.
Unfortunately, half of all chickens born are males.
The lesson never taught is that chickens are one of the
marvels of nature. A mother hen turns each egg carefully as often
as 3O times a day, using her body, her feet, and her beak to move
the egg precisely in order to maintain the proper temperature,
moisture, ventilation, humidity, and position of the egg during
the 3-week incubation period. Unhatched chicks respond to
soothing sounds from the mother hen and to warning cries of the
rooster. Two to three days before the baby birds are ready to
hatch, they start peeping to notify their mother and siblings
that they are ready to emerge from the shell, and to draw her
attention to any discomfort they may be suffering such as cold or
abnormal positioning. A communication network is established
among the baby birds, and between the baby birds and their
mother, who must stay calm while all the peeping, sawing, and
breaking of eggs goes on underneath her. As soon as all the eggs
are hatched, the hungry mother and her brood go forth eagerly to
eat, drink, and explore.
Instead of teaching these valuable lessons, school hatching
projects mislead children to think that chicks come from machines
with no need of a mother or a family life. Supplemental facts,
even if provided, cannot compete with this barren, mechanistic,
and decontextualized classroom experience.
Chick hatching projects teach children (and teachers) that
bringing a life into the world is not a grave and permanent
responsibility with ultimate consequences for the life thus
created. Elimination of this destructive idea from our schools is
a practical extension of the socially responsible atmosphere we
are trying to create for our children. Chick hatching projects,
which began in the 195Os, need to be replaced with state-of-the-
art teaching programs including colorful books, filmstrips,
videos, computer programs, overhead transparencies, and vinyl
plastic models that demonstrate the embryonic process in the
major stages of development of a chick inside an egg. Easily-
adapted programs are already in use in other areas of biology.
One example is the human pregnancy series models that are mounted
on individual stands showing the human uterus with an embryo and
fetus in the major stages of development. Another is the Frog
Bio-Logical Model, a plastic chart with removable organs.
Educators can help by urging educational supply companies to
develop alternative programs, and by purchasing existing
alternative programs, creating a demand.
In addition, an understanding of the natural life of
chickens incorporating the fact that they are birds can be
encouraged by quietly observing a nest of wild birds including
pigeons, sparrows and other birds who have adapted to city life.
Field trips to places where chickens can be seen socializing,
sunbathing, dustbathing, foraging and enjoying themselves outside
will help students to see these birds in a sensitizing and
appealing perspective. Field trips in conjunction with the local
Audubon Society or other local nature study organizations can
incorporate holistic projects in which students observe the
fascinating ecology of many kinds of birds.
If a hatching project is being considered at your school,
please use an alternative project, or urge the science curriculum
coordinator or whoever else is responsible to use a replacement
that respects the life and feelings of all creatures. In doing
so, you are helping to build a society in which it will one day
be considered unthinkable to generate a living being simply as an
experiment.
Egg: A Photographic Story of Hatching (1994). K-12. Text by
Robert Burton. Photographs by Jane Burton and Kim Taylor. This
beautifully crafted and enticing book shows chickens, ducklings,
ostriches and other birds, reptiles, fish, and insects developing
inside and hatching from an egg. It "captures the very moment of
hatching in extraordinary close-up photographs--from the first
crack in the eggshell to the newborn bursting free." Color. Pub.
Dorling Kindersley. Order for $13.95 per book or 2 or more books
for $10.46 per book from Houghton Mifflin. Ph:1-800-733-2828.
The Egg, by Louise Goldsen (1992). K-4. This spiral-bound
book with acetate transparencies opens flat as pages are turned
to show the various stages of a chick developing inside the egg.
Other kinds of animals that lay eggs are shown, too. Color. First
Discovery Books Series. Order for $8.16 per book from Scholastic
Inc. Ph:1-800-325-6149.
Chester the Chick. Text and photographs by Jane Burton.
(1988) K-6. A lively informative book that follows a zesty male
chicken during his first year of life as he grows inside the egg,
hatches, learns to peck for food, plays with his sister and other
chicks, and develops into a handsome young rooster. The
protective role of the mother hen is stressed and the family are
shown interacting with each other and their outdoor environment.
Color. How Your Pet Grows Series. Random House. SF487.5.B87.
Chickens, by Diane Snowball (1986) K-4. Illustrated by Mary
Werther. This book shows the sequence of egg laying, embryonic
development and chick hatching including an eggshell that can be
flipped open to look inside at days 4, 14, and 21 of incubation.
Color. Pub. Multimedia International Ltd (UK)/Scholastic Inc.
(USA).
How Chicks Are Born, by Bruce Grant. Illustrated by Mary
Whilldin. (1967) K-4. Sensitive and informative. "Oftentimes
there is a wish for materials which would help explain some of
the wondrous events in life. This is a science book. The factual
details have been carefully checked. The pictures of chick
embryos have been made as accurate as possible. This is a book
that is meant to be studied." Color. Start-Right Elf Books. Rand
McNally.
Life Cycles Videodisc. K-12. A state-of-the-art database on
reproductive biology. "Animal and plant reproduction comes to
life in 4,OOO color images, computer graphics, illustrations, and
vivid footage from the acclaimed Oxford Scientific Films." The
disc is fully indexed in a 200-page directory. Includes the
complete life cycle of chickens and many other birds and other
animals. Topics: Territorial behavior, courtship, nest-building,
metamorphosis, mating, birthing, pollination, budding, cell
division. Order videodisc and directory for $395 and optional
MediaMAX Software for $199 from Videodiscovery. Ph:1-800-548-
3472.
Chickens, by Lou Lilly. K-12. (1969) Color. Sound. 13 min.
The setting is a penned barnyard. Relations are established by
the rooster who strictly supervises his family. The camera
minutely captures the chickens' activities: scratching and
pecking for food, preening, drinking water, dozing, socializing.
The rooster imperiously warns a cat away from the chicks. Close-
up shots of the chickens' feet make them look like tree trunks--a
worm's eye view! The effect is to evoke chickens' immense
vitality. There is no narration: we hear the voices of the
chickens with an upbeat musical score. Order for $89 from
Altschul Group Corporation. Ph: 1-800-323-9084. Fax:708/328-6706.
Chick, Chick, Chick, by Mick and Bob Brown. K-12. (1974)
Color. Lively natural sounds without commentary. Mimetic musical
accompaniment. 12 1/2 min. This careful observation of chicks,
hens, and roosters in an open farmyard setting shows chickens
waking up, eating, drinking, dustbathing, and exploring their
environment. It captures the chickens' verve including the speedy
run of vigorous young chicks. The film cuts back and forth
between the busy life of the family and flock migrating about the
farm among fields and streams, and a hen quietly sitting on a
clutch of eggs about to hatch. One egg actually does hatch on
screen and we watch the chick, exhausted and wet, movingly emerge
from its shell. It is important for the teacher to explain to the
students that under normal (non-filmmaking) circumstances a
mother hen would not leave her chicks to hatch unattended, but,
rather, from the time she knows they are ready to hatch, she sits
patiently until all of her chicks have emerged from the eggs
underneath her, which may take as long as two days. Order for
$49.95 from Churchill Media. Ph:1-800-334-7830.
Chick Embryonic Development. K-12. Includes 24 overhead
transparencies including an Egg Types transparency. Shows the
individual stages of embryonic development from 16 hours to 21
days. Each transparency is $5. Order from Carolina Biological
Supply Company. Ph: 1-800-334-5551. Fax: 1-919-584-3399.
From Egg To Chick. K-6. While the primary mode of use of
Microslide materials is for individualized, self-paced study,
Microslides can be projected so that the entire class can view
them at once. The filmstrip can be cut up and used to make
individual 35 mm slides. MICROMOUNTS (a safe, versatile
alternative to glass slides) are an inexpensive and simple way to
do this. Slides show a chick embryo at 13 hrs, 21 hrs, 28 hrs, 48
hrs, 56 hrs, 96 hrs, 12 days, and 21 days. The program includes
Micro-Slide Viewer, Microslide Lesson Set #103/From Egg To Chick,
Teacher's Guide for Set #103, Reproducible Student Worksheet for
Set #1O3, and Micromount package. (The "Suggested Follow-Up
Activity" in the Teacher's Guide recommending classroom chick
hatching and egg vivisection was written in 1965, an example of
the outmoded pedagogy that needs to be replaced by constructively
innovative learning activities.) Prices reflect purchase size.
$460 for class sizes of 1O students from National Teaching Aids,
Inc., 1845 Highland Ave. New Hyde Park, NY 11O4O. Ph:516-326-
2555.
Chick Development Set. Includes 8 models mounted together on
a sturdy base. With key. Models show the embryonic chick at 18,
21, 24, 27, 33, 38, 48, and 56 hrs. of development. $538 per set.
Other chicken models and models-set choices are also available.
Order from Carolina Biological Supply Company. Ph: 1-800-334-
5551. Fax: 1-919-584-3399.
Butterfly Gardens. K-12. This project involves students
directly in the natural cycles of butterflies, soil, and plant
life while creating a continuing learning opportunity in which
each new class benefits from the work of the previous class. By
using potted plants or a plot of ground the size of a table top
seeded with the appropriate flowering plants, the class can
attract butterflies by the color and scent of flowers.
Butterflies will feed on the plants, mate and lay their eggs on a
plant the larvae eat. A branch with a larva, or caterpillar, can
then be cut off and placed in a screen-covered aquarium in the
classroom. Students can feed leaves to the caterpillar and watch
it grow and turn into a chrysalis and emerge as a beautiful
butterfly. The butterfly can then be released without being
touched. (Holding a butterfly by the wings rubs off the color and
delicate material that enables it to fly.) This project teaches
children how to compost and use garden tools and about the
interdependency of lives and the interactive and recurring cycles
of nature. It teaches them the satisfaction of combining beauty
and utility and of making a real contribution to the world and
the school environment. Contact the Xerces Society, 1O SW Ash St.
Portland, OR 972O4 (Ph: 503-222-2788) for a free brochure and the
Sierra Club Book Butterfly Gardening: Creating Summer Magic in
Your Garden (1990). $20 paperback.
Painted Lady Butterfly Programs. K-12. Carolina Biological
Supply Company offers a variety of painted lady butterfly life-
cycle and habitat kits and programs adapted to different grade
levels. An example is the Painted Lady Butterfly Life Cycle
including all life cycle stages of the painted lady: 6 eggs, 5
larvae in a container with food, 2 chrysalides (you supply
hatching container), and instructions. $19.98 per set. Ph: 1-800-
334-5551. Fax: 1-919-584-3399.
Cornell Lab of Ornithology, an international bird-study
center, offers free advice and information to teachers and others
on birds and specializes in direct observation programs. One
example is Project PigeonWatch, which teaches city school
children about the courtship behavior and coloration of pigeons
and the process of science. Ph: 607-254-2440. Another is Project
FeederWatch, which is used by teachers to excite children about
birds and the natural world and to assist in the gathering of
important data by investigating "an array of natural mysteries
while participating in Project FeederWatch." Contributed by
educators across the continent, the class activities are
"designed to strengthen such skills as observation,
identification, research, computation, writing, creativity, and
more." Teachers are encouraged to write to FeederWatch Education
with ways they have integrated bird-related activities into their
curriculum. For information write: (U.S.) Cornell Lab of
Ornithology/PFW:ED, 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca, NY 14850-
1999. (Canada) Long Point Bird Observatory/PFW:Ed, P.O. Box 160,
Port Rowan, Ontario, N0E 1M0. Ph: (U.S.) 1-800-BIRD (2473); 1-
607-254-2440.
National Audubon Society. "Our nationwide sanctuary system
protects more than 250,000 acres of unique natural habitat for
birds, wildlife, and plants. We run education centers, workshops
and camps which are supported by more than 500 chapters and 10
regional offices located throughout the U.S." For information
contact Education Dept. National Audubon Society, 700 Broadway,
New York, NY 10003. Ph: 212-979-3183; 212-979-3000.
For more information contact:
United Poultry Concerns, Inc.
P.O. Box 59367, Potomac, MD 20859
Ph: 301-948-2406