The baby chicks came to Park Center when they were just a week old. The students have been using operant conditioning to teach the chicks to learn new behaviors that a chick would not normally perform. One group of students, Courtney Faeh and Laura Northfelt taught their chick to climb up a set of stairs. Another group, Machela Johnson, Tamika Kelly and Raven Holliday taught their chick to peck at a red balloon, even being able to distinguish it from a yellow one.
If you have walked down the science hallway lately you may hear what sounds like a bunch of birds chirping. Where can it be coming from, you may think. Haven’t most of the birds flown south for the winter! Actually you are hearing the 20 chicks in Mrs. Maxwell’s classroom. Her Animal Behavior students have been teaching them to do tricks.
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Learning by operant conditioning is a lot like “trial and error”. It became a widely accepted philosophy of learning thanks to work by B.F. Skinner in the 1940s. By using positive reinforcements, such as food, when a desired behavior is performed, it encourages the animal to repeat the behavior. By rewarding the chick as it performs different tasks, the students teach the chick to do different tricks. Skinner’s ideas on learning are often used by teachers and parents. Are you ever rewarded for doing what your parents want you to do? The flip side of operant conditioning is punishment. By punishing an animal, you can get rid of behaviors that you do not like. We did not punish the chicks; they don’t respond well to that. However it does work on animals of higher intelligence. Does this sound more familiar to you? Can you think of ways that your behavior is controlled by the threat of punishment?
After working with the chicks, the students will be allowed to take them home, if they have a place to keep them and their parents approve. We will be very sure that they do not end up as “chicken nuggets” or “chicken patties” spicy or otherwise, on the school lunch menu.
Hopefully they will retire to a life of leisure after spending 2 weeks being students at Park Center High School.