Science Projects for Eighth Grade: Music's Affect on Chickens Laying Eggs

Science textbooks devote a whole chapter to sound. This project takes that lesson a little further and teaches about the effects of sound.

Teach:

Teach your students that music has been known to have an effect on people and on plants. It in not unreasonable to think that music could have an effect on animals as well. Tell students that they are going to participate in an experiment to find out whether music can have an effect on how many eggs a chicken lays.

Materials:

1. Chicken coop with chickens

2. Portable CD player

3. CD of classical music

4. CD of rock music

5. Notebooks

6. Pencils

Procedure:

1. You can arrange to have a small chicken coop at your school for one month or make arrangements with a chicken coop close by.

2. Ask the students what they think will happen when music is played for the chickens. This is their hypothesis. It should define whether the student feels there are going to be more eggs produced with the music, less, or the same. Then the student shoule write why they feel this way. Have the students write all of this down in their notebooks.

3. Go to the chicken coop once per day for five to seven days and count how many eggs are collected. Keep track of this in your notebook. This number will reflect how many eggs are collected without music.

4. After one week begin playing classical music for the chickens. The music should be played for about an hour or two each day for one week. Write down how many eggs are collected each day that the music was played.

5. The third week play rock music for the chickens. Do it for the same length of time you played the classical music so that the results are fair. Keep track of how many eggs are collected each day.

Review:

Compare how many eggs were collected without music, with classical music, and with rock music. Ask the students to share their hypothesis with the class and whether their hypothesis turned out to be right or wrong. Ask the students if any part of this project surprised them.