Hickman County 4-H went into the fourth-grade classrooms to provide classroom enrichment with the Chick Incubation/Embryology program this year. This attempt was tried last year but after only a week, schools were dismissed for remote learning because of Covid-19 and I had to take the incubator home and finish hatching the chics, (in my living room!).  Teachers were very excited to add enrichment to their curriculum by enhancing their life cycle curriculum and bring agriculture into the classroom. By using the 4-H curriculum, I went into the classrooms multiple times to go through what is involved in the incubation process, the stages of development, and how to care for live animals. At day 15, I went back and we candled the eggs. Every child in the fourth grade had the opportunity to come up and view the egg as it was candled and see the live chick inside. After the chicks were hatched, each child got to hold a baby chick. The students became excited and eager to learn about how the chick was developing and the environment the egg must maintain to develop the baby chick which caused them to think logically and develop appropriate questions. On post survey, 100% of the children knew how long it takes for a chick to develop and what conditions it needs to develop. Teachers reported a better understanding of the life cycle curriculum and 100% of them reported that they strongly agree that it helped the students to learn and cause them to generate and ask appropriate questions about what they observed. 100% of the teachers reported that they want to do this project again. Of the 42 eggs that were placed in the incubator, 37 hatched; the rest were not fertilized so we had 100% hatching rate.

As a result of the incubation project, one 4-H youth started their own backyard flock by taking six of the chicks that were hatched during this project. They are both reporting increased learning about poultry and plan to increase their flocks and sell the eggs for additional income.