Wilson School teachers Tricia Kelliher and Rania Njiemoun recently provided their students with an opportunity to learn about the cycle of life while hatching ducklings in their classroom.
The endeavor was underwritten through a grant from The National Council of Jewish Woman that provided funds to purchase supplies needed to complete the activity.
Kelliher and Njiemoun incorporated the project as part of the 4th grade Science curriculum by building knowledge through the investigation of different types of heat transference including conduction, convection, and radiation during the ducks' incubation and hatching process.
Both teachers are ESL certified and, as such, realized the importance of building background knowledge before presenting lessons to language learners. They realized that projects such as this one that also taught the importance of honoring wildlife provided an excellent way of maximizing this process.
“We also incorporated into the activity an SEL lesson on empathy when we shared the measures that were needed to save two of the ducklings that were not hatching on their own,” Kelliher said.
As part of the activity, students applied for and were assigned jobs necessary for caring for the ducks in the classroom. Tasks included building the habitat, maintaining the habitat, handling the ducks, and presenting a project overview to visiting classrooms. Although the teachers and students wanted to keep the ducklings as classroom pets, they concluded that the best thing to do was to send them to a rescue farm that will continue to raise them until they can be released into the wild on a 100-acre property in southern Illinois. “We feel that the project was a huge success and the students are excited to see it happen again next year,” Njiemoun said.
“The grant we received has made it possible to continue this project on a year to year basis as all of the materials purchased will remain at Wilson School for future students and teachers to use.”