An Eggciting New Project
Mr. Barker’s creative psychology assignment has students caring for their egg “children”
Students show off their egg children (Emily McPherron left, Christian Tebeau, Zainub Ahmed and Marissa Pukala – Whitaker on the right)
February 1, 2019
You’ve probably seen students around the school cradling eggs in cups, chilling in blankets, or even shaking their eggs (which can cause shaken egg syndrome). This is because of Mr. Barker’s new AP psychology project.
Though the concept may sound familiar, this is the first time in awhile students have had to take care of an egg. The rules are that the egg must have a “home” and in that home they must be able to breathe. The students have to watch their egg 24/7 and make sure they don’t get “egg napped”, and obviously you can’t break them.
For some students, not breaking their egg has been a struggle. Senior Joshua Geisler explained how he managed to kill four of his egg children. The third time was the most tragic.
“The third time I broke my egg was the third day (with the egg) and I was tossing it up and down in the air playing with it and it cracked a little so I threw it across the parking lot,” Geisler said.
Junior Carter Kussman has had three eggs. He explains how he managed to break one of his three egg children.
“The first egg I got, I kept it until 6th hour (Kussman has psychology 2nd hour). I was in StuCo and we were doing an activity in class so I just put it in my backpack. When I went to go get it out, it was cracked and I had to wash my backpack that night.”
After breaking his egg, senior Nate Bowsher redeemed himself after an unfortunate egg dropping.
“Well about 3 minutes after getting my egg, Mr. Barker was making egg puns and as soon as he made one about not breaking your egg, mine slipped out of my hand from like two inches and broke all over my desk,” Bowsher said. “When I got my new egg, Mr.Creen, my engineering teacher, helped me wrap my new egg in silicon. So now it’s basically as hard as a rock, and wont ever break again.”
Though some people have broken their eggs, senior Maya Angeles has come up with a unique home for her egg. Angeles put her egg in a cup and added a straw (so it could breathe). She then filled the cup with an epoxy that hardens like concrete. Angeles came up with the idea in her EDD class.
“My friends and I were thinking of how easy this project would be if we were to hypothetically submerge our eggs in carbon fiber or cement; Mr. Creen overheard our conversation and suggested actually using the epoxy that we had in class to protect the egg.” The egg’s home makes this project very easy for Angeles.
“I don’t have to be extremely delicate with my egg; I can place my egg in my backpack and carry it around for the day rather than carry it around by hand,” she said. “I don’t have to worry about how fragile my egg is, for example I can drop my egg and have it sustain the impact. Plus, I always know which egg is mine during class.”
Barker’s project simulates the struggles of being a middle-aged parent with a young kid, and it seems like his students learned a lot from the project.
“The project is not over, but so far I have learned that parenting is EGGtremely hard,” Kussman said.
Geisler added, “I got that I’m a bad parent, and shouldn’t have kids for a while. But I don’t think they break like eggs when you drop them.”
