By:  Makenzie Droll

For the first year, Valerie Morningstar had her seventh grade students do an egg project to teach her students about babysitting. Monringstar chose eggs because they are fragile, and they’re not expensive. Morningstar hard-boiled the eggs before the students got them. The students had to carry two eggs and act as if the eggs were babies. They had to name them, change their diapers, and take them everywhere they went. The students had an opportunity to get up in the middle of the night for extra credit. Students “parented” their eggs for three days, even taking them to classes. If individual teachers did not want the eggs in their classrooms, the students had to take them to Morningstar for daycare. Teachers had to check off that each student had an egg in their classrooms. They started carrying their eggs on Monday, January 6, 2020.Alexis Sumner, a seventh grader who had to carry the eggs around, named her eggs Hunter Mathew and Ash Marie. Sumner’s eggs survived the entire three days; they didn’t break. “I took my egg to my classes, on the bus, to gymnastics, and home,” says Sumner. Sumner earned one hundred and one points out of one hundred possible points on the project. According to Sumner, “ Anyone in the hallway, anyone is my classes, my teachers, and my family [are the only ones that saw my eggs].” None of Sumner’s teachers said they did not want her eggs in their classrooms. It was difficult for Sumner to keep her eggs safe because of the other kids. “[The meaning of the project is to] teach them responsibility and how to take care of another child,” says Moringstar.Twelve out of eighteen of the students lasted three days without breaking their eggs. The students who did crack their eggs only had one crack, and the crack was because of another student. The students who had a cracked egg had to fill out a form explaining how the egg baby got hurt (cracked).