Chicks and Ducklings!

If you’ve been on the Upper School campus any time in the last few weeks, you will certainly have heard the students buzzing about the chicks and ducks.  US science teacher, Ms. Mytko, gets chicken and duck eggs from a farm in Placer County.  Not all of the eggs produce hatchlings, and this year, some chicken eggs got mixed in with the duck eggs.  Though the chick eggs mixed in did hatch in the duck egg incubator, any duck eggs that might have been in the chicken egg incubator would not have hatched.  The eggs have different tolerances for temperature.

The birds serve to complement the seventh grade life sciences unit on cells and development.  Students started the units with an egg lab to study osmosis; students found that the cell membrane is semipermeable, which allows substances such as water through, but keeps other substances out.  Osmosis is a key element as eggs form in birds’ reproductive tracts.  Students learned that calcium crystals make up shells, and that the pores are visible in the microscale level.  Seventh graders have been working with the Advanced Light Source at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory to use tomography and visualization at the micron level, so the work on egg shells  was a great intersection.  Furthermore, students explored cell devision, as well digestion of cells of food to create new proteins to build tissues and, well, grow!  Seventh graders also were able to tie in concepts from evolution and the Tree of Life, considering the question: Why do birds lay eggs and have feathers?  Students also considered ethics in food production.  Of course, the Lower School kids took advantage of the hatching birds as well.  They got to learn the parts of an egg and how the egg develops.  They observed the hatchlings’ behavior and compared structural differences between chicks and ducks.  

So what now?  Usually, Ms. Mytko allows members of the BPC community to adopt the chickens or ducks to keep in their own yards.  Any birds remaining get to go back to where they originated--a farm in Placer County.  This farm is unique in that it will take back its birds that do not find homes.  This year, our garden teacher, Ms. Frycke, worked with science teacher, Mr. Cohen, to build a home for chickens here on the US campus at BPC.  On Saturday, students, parents, siblings, teachers, administrators, and other members of the community cleared out a space in our garden and built a coop for some of the chickens.  We won’t know if we’re getting any eggs yet--though professionals can sex the chicks earlier, we won’t be able to sex them for another three months.  We are lucky to be able to keep the chickens on our campus, where they will continue to provide lots of learning opportunities for our students!

Thanks to Ms. Mytko for helping me write this blog post!