Author: Heather Cassill
Planning Unit: Clark County CES
Major Program: Agriculture 4-H Core Curriculum
Plan of Work: Horticulture, Livestock, Forages, Agriculture
Outcome: Intermediate Outcome
The life cycle of animals are a part of the science curriculum for a variety of grade levels. The Clark County 4-H program offers the chick incubation project to Preschool through 3rd graders to enhance their classroom curricula while seeing real life examples of the life cycle represented. 4-H Extension Staff provides the curriculum, incubation equipment and in classroom lesson talking about the chicken lifecycle and parts of the egg for the chick project. The chick incubation eggs are obtained at no cost from the University of Kentucky Poultry. This spring, 21 classrooms participated in the chick incubation project. Twelve families adopted the chicks, who were then able to use the chickens to enhance their livelihood. Outside of the classroom, teacher’s reported from parents that students were talking about the projects with their families and friends at home. As an outcome of the project indicated in post-evaluations, 100 percent of students indicated that they learned more about the life cycle of the chick, how the chick incubation process works, how a fertilized egg developed into a chick, parts of the egg and how to care for a living animal. In 2018, a need was seen to educated youth and families about how to care for chicks from day three after hatching through egg production. The Clark County 4-H Chick Chain Poultry Club was started under the leadership of Clark County 4-H Agent, Heather Cassill and two 4-H volunteer leaders. Seven youth completed the project in its first year. Youth met eight times to learn more about how to care for their chicks. Topics included brooding, nutrition, health, safety, housing and handling. Five families adopted chicks from the classroom incubation projects. Youth had a better understanding of what is involved with raising poultry and 100 percent they understood the needs of the chicks through each stage of development.
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