Which came first: the chicken or the egg?

It’s that old riddle that may have sparked many conversations through the ages: was it the chicken or the egg that came first? It’s such a tricky question because you need a chicken to lay an egg, but chickens come from eggs, leaving us with an intractable circle of clucky, feathery life that apparently has no clear starting point.

Thankfully, there’s no need to keep brooding over this forever. This is a riddle we can unscramble with the tools of science—more specifically, the principles of biology. Biology is a very relatable subject for students as it is all about life and living, something they do naturally on a daily basis whilst they observe and engage with things through play.

Term One has seen students at JPS embrace the role of being a Biologist, specifically a poultry scientist. Students engaged in a variety of hands on activities to be able to identify and discuss the basic needs of a chicken, they built a chicken habitat, they explored the physical features of the chicken, the life cycle (the chicken or the egg?), they learned about the history of poultry tracing it back to the dinosaurs, they transported eggs from the farm to the fork. An egg-cellent week of learning in science!

Mrs Phillips 

Science Teacher