Purdue News
Purdue News
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April 10, 1998
Purdue specialist hatches 'egg-citing' programWEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Mickey Latour has a chick book, but his wife doesn't care. It isn't a little black book, it's one he created for children learning about egg incubation. Latour, you see, is a poultry specialist with the Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service.The youngsters actually make the book themselves by coloring four small pages, cutting them out and stapling them together. The educational craft is part of the "Incubators in the Classroom" program, which allows elementary school children to hatch eggs in their classrooms. "Studies support that we're more likely to create a lasting impression about agriculture if they have some exposure to it early," Latour said. "Ideally, this program helps kids understand where their food comes from. Children retain more information if they learn it in a hands-on way." Incubators in the Classroom has been in place since June and is sponsored by the Purdue Animal Sciences Department, Cooperative Extension Service, the Indiana State Poultry Association, and the Turkey Market Development Council. Eighteen incubators are available for elementary teachers to borrow. Latour includes educational materials with the incubators and will speak to classes if his schedule allows. Latour created the program to teach children how incubation warms and hatches eggs, how the embryo develops, and how chicks grow. He explains why eggs, especially the yolks, are the perfect food for developing chicks and why they're good for humans. He further explains how the eggs we eat are different from those that hatch into chicks. Valerie Vessely, a Purdue graduate who teaches third grade at St. Barnabas School in Indianapolis , worked the incubator program into her curriculum. "We studied life sciences," she said. "Plants, then animals. First we studied endangered species, then farm animals. We took a field trip to Johnson County Farm Day, too, and tied it all together." Vessely said St. Barnabas has 60 third-graders -- 30 in each of two classrooms. She said many of the children had been to a zoo and seen exotic animals, but they had little exposure to farm animals. The children paired up, with each pair sharing an egg. The children numbered the eggs for identification purposes, placed them in the incubator and waited for them to hatch. Latour explained: "The incubation period is 21 days, and there's a lot of management involved in turning the eggs every day so the embryo develops properly. We incubate the eggs at Purdue for about 15 to 18 days, then we take them to the classroom at that stage and let the kids take over." Vessely said that worked out well because it not only took the pressure off the kids, but they got to see the eggs hatch within a couple of days. "They got to watch the chicks hatch and dry off and get strong enough to hop around," she said. "They liked seeing the hatched chicks peck on the eggs and try to help the others hatch." According to Vessely, the kids' top questions were: "Can I hold one?" "How can I tell which one is mine now that they've hatched?" and "Is it a boy or a girl?" She said that when Latour delivered the incubator, eggs and materials, he spoke to the class and showed them a CD-ROM featuring the development of the embryo all the way through hatching. She said many of the youngsters responded with "Oooh, gross!" but they learned from it and put the knowledge to use when the chicks hatched and when they attended Farm Day. "Watching the CD, the kids witnessed how and what the embryo looks like prior to hatching and how different segments of the body come together to create a live animal," Latour said. "The CD is the very first of its kind." But the learning process didn't just end with the hatching of the eggs. The class also learned what their chicks would be used for when they grow up. "So they don't just see them as an animal or a pet, we talked about their purpose," Vessely said. She said they had a pig in the classroom one day, as well, and talked about it and other animals from which meats come. She said the kids took it very well. The project is one that delighted the entire school, according to Vessely. Before the chicks were sent home with the kids or off to a farm, every class got to visit them in Vessely's classroom. "The kids were so excited," Vessely said. "They'll remember this forever." Vessely was enthused about the project, too, and plans to use it year after year. About 25 Indiana schools have had Incubators in the Classroom so far, exposing nearly 5,000 youths to the metamorphosis of an egg into a chick. In addition, an incubator was set up in the Poultry Barn at the 1997 Indiana State Fair, where thousands of youngsters had access to it. This year, Latour said, he'll have incubators at the state fair, Purdue's Spring Fest and Tots' Day, and the Farm Progress Show. He said he expects a half million people to be exposed to the program at those events. Latour said less than 3 percent of the U.S. population is involved in farming these days, so children often don't understand where food comes from. "We're trying to educate them on agriculture's role," he said. To request Incubators in the Classroom, teachers can contact Ken Wolber, manager at the Purdue Animal Sciences Research Center Poultry Unit, (765) 583-2950. There's a $5 fee per dozen eggs, and optional printed materials are available for an additional fee. To find out more about the educational materials, teachers should contact Latour at (765) 494-8011.
Source: Mickey Latour, (765) 494-8011; e-mail,
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