As the nation welcomes the Year of the Rooster, Dashan Elementary School principal Hsu Ching-hung (徐慶宏) talked about teaching students about life and nature by raising chickens on campus.
Hsu, who is also the deputy convener of the nature education section of the Miaoli County Government’s public education advisory group, said he started using chicken-raising as an educational aid when he received a donation of live chickens from a professor of medical biotechnology when he was the principal at Daping Elementary School in Miaoli.
Hsu said he knew nothing about raising chickens at the time, but learned how to do so together with his students.
Photo provided by Hsu Ching-hung
Hsu said he had to convert his office into a hatchery with heat lamps one winter to keep the chickens warm when the weather turned cold.
To keep the school clean, students help with cleaning the coop and the campus every morning, he said.
Chicken excrement is collected to be added to the compost pile for the school’s vegetable garden, he added.
Many of the school’s students volunteer to help him first thing in the morning after arriving in school, and have found it to be a “happy” experience, especially when they see a chick hatching, he said.
Dashan Elementary School’s life education classes teach pupils in the lower grades to identify animals in their environment, and those in the higher grades to observe and understand animal behavior, such as feeding and mating, Hsu said.
Students at the school treat the chicks like their pets, while the birds also get used to human contact, Hsu said.
Interacting with chicks seem to have a calming effect on children, making them more sociable and well-behaved, he said.
The school’s chickens have plenty to eat, including feeds, leftovers, worms and bugs in the compost area near the coop, the principal said.
While the chickens at the various schools where he served as principal were never slaughtered for meat, their lives are not without risks, Hsu said.
For one, the chickens at Daping Elementary School were often threatened and sometimes killed by stray dogs, he said.
That prompted the students to build a dog-proof coop with the help of their carpentry teacher to protect the birds, Hsu said, adding that it became a teaching opportunity for math and science.
Birds of prey also often attack the chickens at Dashan, with the students once witnessing a hawk swoop down and kill a hen, Hsu said.
“The children were upset, angry and crying,” Hsu said.
The teachers were shocked, but it also compelled them to teach children about “death, which is part of life education,” Hsu said.
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
Taiwanese barista Xie Yi-chen (謝溢宸) recently triumphed at the 2024 World Coffee Championships, taking home 1st place in the World Latte Art category. Xie, 28, impressed the judges in the final round with patterns of a whale, a moose, and a dragon in the three-day competition that took place in Copenhagen, Denmark from June 27-29, clinching the title of latte art world champion during his first time representing Taiwan on the world stage. At a press conference held by the Taiwan Coffee Association on Thursday, Xie said that creating latte art gives him a tremendous feeling of achievement. Speaking about his entries in
TRAVEL CONVENIENCE: The program is to shorten wait times while passing through airport checks and would start for Taiwanese from January next year Japan is to launch a new program to expedite entry procedures for Taiwanese starting from January next year. The Japanese government is planning to introduce new rules to shorten the time it takes foreign travelers to pass through immigration, thereby attracting more tourists to visit, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported yesterday. An airport preclearance program would be implemented to allow foreign travelers to finish some screenings at their departure airport’s terminals and undergo simple confirmation procedures upon arrival, it said. The program would initially be applied to travelers from Taiwan from January next year and could be extended to travelers from elsewhere depending
The annual Taipei Summer Festival, which starts today, is to tone down its fireworks displays, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said on Monday. Fireworks displays are to be held at the riverside site in Datong District’s (大同) Dadaocheng (大稻埕) area on four days at this year’s festival, with the first today, and then on Wednesday next week, July 31 and Aug. 10, the department said. There were eight displays last year, with the reduction aimed at minimizing inconvenience to local residents, it said. The first three shows, which are all on Wednesdays, are to last for five minutes, while the final