No it’s not a real baby but it’s certainly a reality check for some Perry Meridian High School Child Development Students. Over the next ten days 85 students will learn to develop basic parenting skills using a raw egg. “It’s with them from 7:25 until 2:20 every day and if they have after school activities they have to pay someone to watch their egg”, says Child Development teacher, Sarah Bellinger. The Family Consumer Science class or FACS is designed as a wake up call of sorts to help teens understand the complexity and seriousness of dealing with an actual baby and simply dealing with family life. Some of the students have even opted for twins.

Students Taylor Roberson, Kevon Hankerson and Alysa Pierce showed how they were preparing their eggs to withstand the rigors of the next ten days. Students will keep a scrapbook and journal of all the things their baby/egg experiences including typical behaviors and milestones. The baby/eggs will develop at 1-year per day over the ten day period.  “Sadly some of the students learn how fragile babies can be as some of the eggs had cracks on the first day”, stated Bellinger. Most of the cracks, she says, comes from simply squeezing the eggs too hard as they drew faces on them. Regardless the students will have to fill out reports and possibly take a lower grade if the eggs aren’t properly cared for. The students can even have a sonogram of their baby.

The class is an elective and the teacher says most of the students take it because of this experiment. Students also discuss family backgrounds and budgeting.