Have you noticed students carrying eggs around Ipswich High School? You probably have and you are probably wondering why they are. Well these eggs are these AP Psychology Students egg babies.
You might be wondering how learning about babies has anything to do with AP Psychology. Well, it does because of Developmental Psychology. One of the units is all about Developmental Psychology about different stages all of us went through as kids and might go through for the rest of our lives. Learning about our development as humans is a very important thing for everyone to know the stages we went through as kids and how they helped shape us and what stage we are in right now and ones we will go through in our futures. These stages aren’t all the same for everyone though some people go through some earlier than others and some don’t make it to all the stages and some do as everyone is different. I interviewed our school’s Psychology teacher who teaches AP Psychology about what students are supposed to learn from this project and he told me “Students are supposed to learn the stages of Piaget in development and child barring and cognitive stages and are supposed to answer questions about what kind of parent you would be.” I have heard of other schools doing this project and how some of them use plastic electronic babies that can talk, eat, and are really realistic. I have heard that they are very expensive so that’s why I was assuming we didn’t use them but I asked Mr. Caulfield and he told me like what I thought “I would love to use plastic babies but they are super expensive and I decided to use eggs because they are fragile which simulates taking care of a baby still. And those babies are big bucks.”
The assignment for the Psychology’s egg project is to take care of an egg for a week. I asked Mr. Caulfield why he decided to have this be a project. “I didn’t invent this project that several other psychology teachers have been doing over the years. I thought it would be beneficial for students in a mock situation of what it’s like to be a parent and the assignment that goes along with it. I know that Triton does it and several other schools.” The first day of the week in class we all got just one real egg not hard boiled and we were told that is the only one we are getting from our teacher Mr. Caulfield. We were told to bring in supplies to decorate our eggs and carriers that day. I love decorating so I brought in a bunch of supplies, gems, feathers, a zebra print -pink purse that used to hold a stuffed animal dog, and doll clothes. I had a vision for my egg and I wanted her to be fancy and have different outfits each day. I also named her Rosalinda. Everyone in the AP Psychology classes loves this project. It’s always a fun one. I interviewed Colleen Macdonald an AP Psychology student about the project and she told me “I liked it because it was a unique experience that I can’t think of any other project like that. It seems simple but when you think about cracking an egg it’s hard.” Colleen also decorated and named her egg, “Named my egg Eggy Munson and in a mason jar with a sock over it.” And Colleen’s Eggy Munson won 1st place in the best decorated egg contest for her class.The teachers around the school also love the project to see some of their students carrying around fun decorated eggs in fun carriers and see them take care of them as if they were real babies. We also had a baby book to fill out each day of what our egg baby did and answer some questions about Developmental Psychology vocabulary as this was a school project. I asked Mr. Caulfield if he has a favorite story from this project and he told me, “I would say I like how excited students get decorating and coming up with unique names for the eggs and showing off their creativity. I liked Colleen’s Eggy Munson who added pop culture by naming hers after a Stranger Things character.”
There were some rules set in place though because these were real eggs and were supposed to pretend to be real babies. If you broke your egg you would get points taken off. I asked Colleen how she felt about this and she told me “No I feel like but also yes because you’re pretending it’s a baby because if you drop your baby you’re a bad parent but at the same time it’s not bad because it’s so easy to crack an egg and break it and an egg is not the same as a baby.” I also asked her if she broke her egg and I was told “No I didn’t break my egg. But the day we were decorating them I dropped it on my desk but it didn’t break.” You were also supposed to bring your egg to school everyday and to class. You would also get points taken off if you forgot to bring your egg to class. I asked Colleen her opinion on this “Yes because it’s such an easy thing to do your literally bringing your egg to class. How could you forget that?” You were supposed to bring your egg along with you outside of school too. Mine helped me do my homework, watched Gossip Girl with me, and drove in the car with me. I asked Colleen where she took her egg and she told me “I took my egg on a walk with my family, to school obviously, to my mom’s birthday dinner at a restaurant, to softball but I kept it in my bag because I don’t trust anybody in the softball place because it’s a bunch of random little kids playing soccer so I do not trust people there.” The AP Psychology egg project is a fun and beneficial way to learn more about developmental psychology.
