Big Silver Generator of Death

Congo finally got the best of me and my incubating chick eggs. After the power went out and the backup generator malfunctioned, the incubator turned off for a few hours and chilled to uninhabitable temperatures. By the time I discovered this it may very well have been too late. Nonetheless, between bothering my boss, the head of maintenance and the napping electrician on a Saturday afternoon, we managed to stage a dramatic rescue of moving the eggs and incubator to my house. If the power outage didn't kill or deform them, my hasty attempts to make up for the low temperatures probably cooked whatever was left of the chicks. Late last night the generator was restored and today the power is back on, so I moved everything back to my classroom which may now be a science museum of dead, dying or deformed embryos. Hatching day is scheduled for Tuesday-Wednesday, so now we wait. The chicks eggs should start rocking, vibrating and peeping soon, but no signs of life so far.

Crossing all appendages for the chicks, the kinderfolk and me.

Child's First Dissection

Today was the day of truth for our eggs. Ringed, spotted or otherwise undeveloping eggs were getting tossed. We candled each egg noting air sacs, embryos (the eyes anyway) and webs of blood vessels. We even saw some embryos moving around. But egg 7 has stubbornly sported a blood ring since the weekend, a sign that the embryo died causing the blood to draw away from it and form a ring inside the shell.

The children unanimously agreed that we should throw the egg away so it doesn't start to smell bad, spread germs to the others, or even EXPLODE. Me being an impulsive and messy kind of teacher asked if they would like to see inside before we tossed it.

I roped the high school biology teacher to come down to the elementary school with her dissecting pan, pins and scalpel and had her chip, chip, chip away at the shell. They recognized the yolk and remnants of blood vessels right away and as our resident biologist got down to the embryo I ran to get the camera.

When I returned breathless from the library, camera in hand, she whispered through her teeth, "It's moving." I thought I was going to pass out but managed to hold my eyes steady long enough to take a look. It was actually just floating in the amniotic sac which was still in tact, but was not moving on its own volition. The blood ring marking a dead embryo was even clearer with the shell removed. The children peered at the small embryo nestled against the yolk and identified the various parts after it was scooped out and laid on the dissecting pan.

They approached their first dissection respectfully, inquisitively and fearlessly. I'm going to be the one that has nightmares.

I would do it again, but next time I would risk exploding, reeking eggs and do it after hatching day. It will be a long time before I get over the thought of accidentally dissecting a living animal.

Why Kindergarteners Should Know the Word Sperm, Or, The Relationship Between Vocabulary and Concepts

My kindergarteners know the word sperm. And when we shone the light of a projector through the egg shells to look for signs of development, a process known as candling, they logically hypothesized that the egg that we affectionately call "Number 1" is lacking blood vessels and other signs of life because it did not receive a sperm.

How did it come up in the first place? Well, children wanted to know why eggs in the store did not contain chicks. It's not just because a hen doesn't sit on them, it is also because the hens that lay eggs for consumption are often isolated from roosters so that fertilization cannot occur. Yup, we eat the eggs of lonely hens. Unless you happen to crack open an egg with a spot of blood on the yolk. That would be the remnants of an embryo that died after being removed from hen or incubator. So I told the kinderfolk that although the hen makes and lays the egg, the rooster must add something in order for the egg to become a chick. The child I have renamed Precocious, ever astute and always on to something, raised her hand and announced, "I already have all the eggs I'm ever going to have and if a man gives it something when I'm big, it will make a baby." It was time to name "something." 

It's no big deal to kids to know the word "sperm," only to my colleagues who raised their eyebrows, or cheered or laughed wickedly while rubbing their hands together. It's science and it's truth and if children are asking the questions, they are developmentally ready to know the answers. How the sperm gets into the hen did not cause too much excitement (or analogy) on the children's part, and the fact that chickens mate without penetration made the explanation all the more easy on my part. They actually line up their vents (openings beneath their tails) and the sperm goes from the rooster's vent to the hen's where it eventually finds the egg.

All this because they wanted to know why eggs in the refrigerated section of City Market don't have chicks inside. 

And yeah, we could have skipped the word "sperm" and stuck with the word "something," but besides being pointless, children need vocabulary to develop concepts about the world. One word stands for more words. Lay stands for producing and depositing eggs. Hatch stands for an animal coming out of a shell. Those are some pretty wacky ideas if you think about it, as are most things young children come into contact with for the first time. The world is weird and rather than having to remember something so crazy as a chicken growing an egg inside its body and squeezing it out, when "lay" becomes part of a child's vocabulary, when they hear, read or use it, they access it's meaning in their fascinating brains. (We all do). As children come to use vocabulary to express a concept, they gain a deeper and more complex understanding of that concept. 

My students' vocabularies have expanded wildly since we began incubating eggs. Even my English language learners who have trouble remembering the words for geometric shapes are using vocabulary from the Wall of Special Chick Words:

develop

candle (verb not noun)

hatch

lay

pipping

male

female

egg tooth

blood vessel

air sac

embryo 

prediction

observation

thermometer

temperature

incubator

rotate

The new favorite game in kindergarten is to get in groups of three or four people, be handed a card with one of the above words, figure out how to act it out, and perform their word for the class. Precocious, Sparkles and the Cowboy showed their understanding of the word "develop" by crouching down, then steadily stretching their bodies taller while making muscles and chanting, "smarter, smarter, smarter." To show the words "blood vessel" Neighbor and Fidget lied down with their feet and hands touching to create an egg shape. Annika lied in between them and squiggled her arm like a blood vessel to Pear Blossom, curled up tight as the embryo. Pear Blossom quietly sipped from the blood vessel formerly known as Annika's arm. The applause was deafening.

What's Next?: Teaching them that the embryo gets nutrients from the blood vessels through the abdomen, not the mouth!