JEFFERSON ELEMENTARY CHRISTOPHER M. VERY, PRINCIPAL est Jefferson Hills WEST JEFFERSON HILLS SCHOOL DISTRICT NEWS— JEFFERSON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Collaboratively Written By: Christopher M. Very( Principal) and Ms. Donna Zang( 3rd Grade Educator)
The sound of“ chirps” recently echoed through Ms. Zang’ s third grade classroom, capturing the innate curiosity of students, not only in her classroom, but throughout Jefferson Elementary School.
Ms. Zang recently engaged her students in a four-week long embryology“ pilot” enrichment program, sponsored by a collaboration with Penn State and Allegheny County 4-H, which allowed her students the opportunity to incubate and hatch live chicks in her classroom. This educational program is designed to assist students in building an authentic understanding of the transformation of the lifecycle of a chicken. Through implementing the scientific process within her classroom, students learned about the parts of an egg, what is needed for successful incubation, the stages of embryo development, and how to care for newly-hatched chicks. Additionally, this project allows for students to develop an understanding of biology through direct experiences with living things, their life cycles, and their habitats.
The excitement of this project quickly spread throughout the school, and Ms. Zang took full advantage of this learning
58 West Jefferson Hills
“ Egg” cellent Adventures at Jefferson Elementary School
opportunity, collaborating with numerous educators to get the entire school involved. In addition to regular visits from numerous classrooms, Ms. Zang“ lent” her chick, which the class lovingly named“ Buttercup”, to visit classrooms throughout the building, allowing a variety of teachers to creatively integrate Buttercup into their lesson plan designs. Buttercup also made his debut on our very own JETV News!
This program was such a huge success that Ms. Zang has created a“ Donors Choose” funding opportunity so that we can obtain funds to purchase our very own incubator unit, designed to rotate the eggs every two hours in the absence of our students and staff. If you would like to help with this project, please visit www. donorschoose. org / zang. The district will also be exploring opportunities to provide this educational experience for students throughout the district.
Wondering where Buttercup is now? We are happy to report that he is living out his years with Ms. Zang’ s brother on a farm in Claysville, PA. On behalf of all of us at JES, we miss you Buttercup!