Bird watching as an alternative to chick hatching
Apr 7, 2000 4:03 PM
LEVEL: GRADES 2 TO 6
DURATION: FOUR TO SIX WEEKS
Some of the information in this unit has been adapted, with permission, from United Poultry Concerns' Replacing School Hatching Projects booklet as well as the United Federation of Teachers Humane Education Committee's "Wildlife" newsletter Vol. IV, No. 111.
SCIENCE OBJECTIVE #5: Create models of non-intrusive, productive animal research through natural (non-manipulative) observations.
UNIT OVERVIEW:
This unit will explore the problems involved in classroom chick hatching projects. It will discuss the wide variety of alternative projects which exist with a focus on bird watching. The underlying goal will be to involve young students in the exciting, highly motivating, and often awe-inspiring study of birds in their natural environments. It is hoped that students will come to appreciate the value of observing birds in nature as living beings deserving of our respect rather than as "specimens" in a classroom incubator project.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
Every year, primary school teachers and their students place thousands of fertilized eggs in classroom incubators to be hatched within three to four weeks. 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. Body organs stick to the sides of shells because they are not rotated properly. Eggs can hatch on week-ends when no one is in school. The heat may be turned off for the week-end causing the embryos to become crippled or die in the shell. Commercial suppliers' eggs hatch an abnormally high number of deformed birds reflecting the limited gene pool from which they derive. Some teachers even remove an egg from the incubator every other day and open it up to look at the embryo in various stages of development, even though this results in the death of the embryo.
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 to be collected for disposal. Students and even some teachers are misled to believe that the birds surviving at the end of the project are going to live out their lives happily on a farm. In reality, most of them are going to be killed immediately as working farms do not assimilate school project birds into their existing flocks. Some birds will be sold to live poultry markets and auctions, while others will be fed to captive zoo animals.
Each year, animal shelters across the country are brought unwanted chicks, ducklings, quails and even turkeys by educators who cannot find homes for them. Nearly all of these birds are killed immediately because there are no homes for them or because they arrive sick. Residential zoning laws ban keeping domestic fowl. Even those people who can provide a good home can accommodate only so many birds. Normal flocks have several female birds to one male. Roosters crow before dawn and during the day. This sometimes poses a problem for people willing to take them and may lead to complaints from neighbors.
Observations of birds in their natural environments should be considered as an alternative science unit. This holistic approach can be supplemented with books, videos and posters for a comprehensive and exciting educational experience.
