BOISE - "You need to have something to write with and to write on," instructs Kristen Hennessy, fifth-grade teach at Cynthia Mann Elementary School. "Write down what you notice, does it have a parachute?"
It's the last days of the school year and instead of wondering what they will be doing for summer Miss Hennessy's class is pondering a more philosophical topic.
If Humpty Dumpty didn't just have a great fall but, rather, was dropped, tossed or floated what would keep him from cracking?
For the last four years the fifth- and fourth-grade classes at Cynthia Mann have taken a crash course in physics with an end-of-the-year egg drop.
"We're working on science and engineering and the testing process," explains Miss Hennessy.
That testing process proceeds with Miss Hennessy doing her best to scramble the designs of her students from the sunny-side up side of the school, otherwise known as the roof.
"We say a million feet, approximately," she jokes. "But I think it's roughly 20 feet."
The only rules in place: The apparatus has to be smaller than a shoebox and made without any other food products.
"And there are no rules after that," says Miss Hennessy.
No rules means anything goes when it comes to what it looks like. But the goal is the same. The shell stays intact and the science lessons linger to the last bell of the year.
"We learned to understand gravity and force, mass, acceleration," explains one of Miss Hennessy's students.
And they also learned that, like elementary school, life can be messy. But an unbroken egg can get you a passing grade and maybe a fist bump from your classmates.