Teaching Lifecycles with Real World Examples
Hatching Chickens in the Classroom
One of the most exciting days at school for some of the students is when we have 'Henny Penny' come to school and set up. Henny Penny is an organisation that provides incubators and small pens for hatching and rearing chickens in the classroom.
It provides students will a hands-on, real-life experience of the lifecycles that they have been studying and they get to see the chicks hatch from their eggs and hold them after they gain enough strength to eat food.
The eggs come a few days from hatching so they are not sitting in the incubators for a few weeks in the classroom.
Once the chickens are hatched they must dry out in the incubators before being transferred to the small pen with lamps for warmth and food and water.
Information sheets for the students are used to highlight the lifecycle process and engage them in their learning.
It is fantastic as the students get very excited and therefore fully engaged in their learning and their anticipation of the next egg hatching is wonderful to see. I think I had no less than 100 students come and see me today, blurting out words about their eggs hatching that I couldn't understand due to their excitement. It is moments like these that makes you come to school each day.
I teach Electrical Apprentices and it's great to see them passionate about what they are learning! I also had the chance to start up a makerspace on the campus and it was a lot of fun watching the students build projects that they were interested in!