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| May 21, 2025 |
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General News: Students Learn About Nature's Life Cycles
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| Talitha Thureau brought in the duck eggs from her farm in Cornwall. |
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| The eggs stayed warm in the incubator until the ducklings were ready to hatch. |
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| The children held the day-old ducklings for the first time. |
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| Mrs. Panzanaro holds the tray full of tiny plants grown from seed by the students. |
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| The radishes and beans are almost ready to plant. |
May 20, 2009
Some fifty first grade students at Willow Avenue Elementary School were in for a big surprise when they came to school this past Monday and found the duck eggs that had been sitting in an incubator for nearly a month were now coming to life.
Mrs. Eleonora Panzanaro, one of the two teachers involved in the project, says that two ducklings had emerged from their eggs Monday morning and six more were pecking away at their shells, trying to get out. By Tuesday afternoon, six fluffy ducklings were sitting in a container in Mrs. Panzanaro’s classroom while the students sat near by, listening to a story about how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly and expanding their knowledge of the life cycle of other plants and animals.
On the windowsill in the class, a tray of radish and bean plants were thriving three weeks after the students had planted the seeds. Next week, the students from this class and Mrs. Tellefesen’s first grade class will go out to the organic garden at the high school to plant the seedlings.
Mrs. Panzanaro explained that she has been developing the life cycle curriculum for years, ever since she taught science and math to sixth grade students. In addition to the ducklings and plants, she has a collection of butterfly larvae in small containers that the students will observe as they transform through the chrysalis stage in cocoons into full-grown butterflies. Once the painted lady butterflies have spread their wings, the students will release them outdoors.
“I want to teach the students about nature and how to treat animals,” Mrs. Panzanaro said. “If I can do that, I will feel that it was successful.”
Four of the young students were thrilled to a hold some of the fuzzy ducklings that squirmed around in their hands. Their eyes wide with amazement, they held the birds and told a visitor it was “really nice.”
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