Jane Lethlean Correspondent

FREEPORT Center Elementary Schoolsecond-grader Brennan Endsley looked through the window of an incubator filled with chicks and hatching eggs.

I check on them every day, and I was so excited when some of them hatched, and now we get to watch them grow," she said. "They are so cute, and I learned about unfertilized and fertilized eggs.

Chicks began hatching in the incubator in Jeanine Shumakers class on Tuesday. On April 10, 18 eggs and the incubator were delivered to the classroom by Brittani DeVries, education coordinator for the Conservation and Agriculture Partners for the Ag in the Classroom unit on embryology studies.

Twelves area schools are participating in the embryology unit, DeVries said. The chicks and incubators were donated by Pearl Valley Farms and the Stephenson County Farm Bureau. All educational supplies for the unit are also donated to the schools.

What makes the embryology unit fun is the students get to experience life and farming first-hand, DeVries said. Not all students are farm kids, but what this unit is more about is science and being able to watch an embryo develop.

DeVries said most schools that participate in the program find homes for the chicks, but otherwise they go to a farm in Orangeville.

Shumaker said she applied to be part of the unit last year and was happy she was able to bring the unit to her second-grade class this year. Of the 18 eggs brought to the classroom, 10 hatched, two didnt survive and six didnt come to fruition.

All 10 surviving chicks are thriving. Shumaker plans to take one chick home to be with her flock and the rest will be taken home by another teacher.

I have wanted to do a unit on embryology for a long time, Shumaker said. I have chickens at home, and I wanted the students to learn about life cycles and how the environment affects animals.

Shumaker said the students read books and did their research on the different types of chicken breeds. The students partnered up to study colors and feathers of the chickens, but the excitement began when the incubator arrived in the classroom.

Each day, the students used a method called candling, which involves looking inside the egg by shining a bright light into it to watch the development of the chick. Its used to test whether an egg is good to go into the incubator and whether the embryo develops as it should.

They came to us in an egg carton, and then we placed them in the incubator, Shumaker said. This has the students have hands-on experience, and their response is they wanted to learn more. The more exposure to life they have, the greater respect they will have. To experience it, you learn more and doing things like this helps them remember what they did in school.

Grace Lewis said she checked out books from her library to learn more about chickens.

I got to read about chickens, and then I got to see them born, Lewis said. We had to let them dry before we could hold them, and its exciting to watch them eat. They are so cute.

Jane Lethlean: jlethlean1210@gmail.com; @DOGWMN2

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Center Elementary School students watch chicks hatch - Freeport Journal-Standard