Chick Watch - Day 6

On Monday, the first graders were able to complete a few more egg related activities.  The most eggs-citing one was when the children were able to candle our eggs for the first time!  Using a high-intensity LED light, we looked inside all 12 of our eggs (4 per class) to see how their development was going.  Here is what we found out!

Meringue turned out to be unfertilized.  We knew this because there was no embryo inside, nor was there a blood ring - a sign an embryo has stopped developing.  The students found it interesting that it was the only egg that glowed green!  We loved moving the egg around to see the yolk float back and forth!

All 11 of the other eggs turned out to be fertilized with embryos developing inside!  Here are a few of them.  The small darkened circle with the black dot is the embryo.  You can also see veins coming from it.

We are so excited to see so many embryos - way more than we expected!  I have explained to all of the 1st graders, however, that we need to continue to monitor the temperature, humidity and rotation to ensure the embryos continue to develop into healthy chicks.  We will candle the eggs again on Friday to see the changes over this week.  Stay tuned for more Chick Watch 2016 soon!