IN THE CLASSROOM -- A fall from a wall

Danette Goulet

CORONA DEL MAR - If the kindergarten students at Harbor View

Elementary School had dressed Humpty Dumpty that fateful morning, he

wouldn’t have needed the assistance of king’s horses or the king’s men.

Students packaged raw eggs so securely that very few met a messy end

Friday morning when the schools’ principal, Karen Kendall, tossed them

off an eight-foot rooftop.

It was a science project with Easter flair.

Each kindergartner was directed to package one raw egg that could be

dropped from the school roof and survive.

Up on the rooftop, Kendall climbed. Then one by one, with many eager

eyes looking on, she launched the bizarre bundles off the roof and onto

the blacktop.

And a little bit of padding seemed to go a long way. Cushioned in a

box of plastic Easter basket grass -- eggs survived. Surrounded by

balloons -- eggs survived. Embedded in chunky peanut butter - the egg

didn’t even move, let alone break.

But other eggs did meet the same tragic fate as our old friend Humpty.

Where the protection of a makeshift parachute succeeded, a propeller

failed. As padded as a Twinkie seems, it cannot protect an egg from an

eight-footdrop.

“Mine totally broke,” groaned Anna Chavez, 5.

While some splattered -- most survived.

“Alex’s broke. Are you mad Alex?” asked Jackie Buechler, 6. “I hope

mine didn’t break or I’ll go crazy.”

While Jackie’s egg remained in tact, the demise of Alex’s egg was a

bit offsetting for viewers since it was packed in a model of a human

brain.

Judging by the innovative packaging jobs and adorable way some were

decorated, students may have had as much doing their homework as they did

watching their principal pitch them off the roof.