By Morgan Watts
For the Salisbury Post

With spring time here, the Rowan County 4-H Embryology Program is in full gear.

If you are not aware of what the embryology program is, it is where we send chicken eggs to the elementary schools in the county. There, students get the chance to watch them hatch in the classroom.

This program is used to show the life cycle over a 21-day period. So far, we have had two different cycles go through the school system this year; one was in January-February, and the last one was in February-March.

That second cycle just finished up last week with over 200 chicks hatching. That cycle had both public school and homeschool families in the county participating.

The next cycle will start the week after spring break with 30 classrooms participating. Each classroom is given a dozen eggs to hatch in incubators that we supply.

This is just one of the many school enrichment programs that we offer to the school system. We have a lot of fun working with the youth and teachers with this project. If you are a homeschool family or you know an elementary teacher that might be interested in incorporating this into their classroom next year, please let me know.

If you have any questions, please call Morgan Watts at the Rowan County Center at 704-216-8970. For up-to-date information about things happening with Rowan County 4-H, go to https://rowan.ces.ncsu.edu/ or follow Rowan County 4-H on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/rowan4h/.

Morgan Watts is livestock and field crops agent for the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service in Rowan County.