Monday, April 21, 2008

Working the basics II

David Seaton's News Links
When I was in junior high, I had this wonderful science teacher, Mr. Lazlo, a very vocational teacher who was always finding creative ways of teaching. He even let me turn in my homework in comic book form. I adored him.

One spring Mr. Lazlo brought an incubator to class filled with fertilized chicken eggs. Every day we would cut open one of the eggs and examine the development of the fetuses.

Day by day we saw the fascinating change from a clot of blood to something that looked more like a chicken.

Everyday we killed a baby chick for this.

Finally the day came for the surviving baby chicks to hatch.

Little holes began to appear in the shells as the chicks tried to peck their way out.

When the chicks were managing to get their heads free of the shell, Mr. Lazlo suggested that we help some of the chicks get out of the shell and let the others get out the best they could.

The ones we helped soon died. Apparently the act of getting out of the shell was a vital part of their development.

Discuss. DS

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Natural childbirth vs. C-section maybe?

Anonymous said...

A poultry variation of the "Give me a fish and I will eat for today. Teach me to fish and I will eat for the rest of my life" proverb? Do we save the polar bears by caging them?

Anonymous said...

How about smashing the shell of a middle eastern country with a hammer in order to "help" it. I don't know. I give up.